A load of old rubbish

Good title for a post about last night's depressing 4 Corners program on waste and recycling failures in Australia, no?

[By the way, that new ABC reporter continually reminds me of Daria.  She does come across as a tad over-earnest, if you ask me.]

But if you want to watch an episode full of men looking uncomfortable during interviews, you should watch it.   The guy from NSW EPA looked particularly guilty, if you ask me; and the other stellar shonky bit of government seemed to be the Gosford council.   And who knew that there are mountains of broken glass in warehouses around Australia, or that Ipswich, a town with an image problem even before last night,  had seemingly become the dumping ground for much of the rest of Australia's unwanted rubbish?

The odd story of the Rabbit God

It always seems to me that the historical Asian take on male homosexuality had a much higher emphasis on romanticism than much of the modern Western image of it:   if you ask me, it's not like a gay pride parade featuring drag queens, men and lesbians in leather, and many guys in speedos and feathers can be easily said to be emphasising romanticism over in-your-face eroticism/fetishism.  I think you still see this in Asian countries today, with oddities like straight Japanese women who are fans of young men in love manga and anime.

Further evidence of the importance of romance in Asian thoughts on homosexuality comes from this article that I stumbled across yesterday, from Taipei, where gay marriage had a sudden and unexpected legal endorsement recently.  There's a small Taoist temple there, to cater for gay men:

All religions address both spiritual needs and issues of here and now. New deities and even new religions often emerge to address needs or during times of social change. The founding of the Gay Rabbit God Temple in Taipei is one such example.

About five years ago (2005), a Taoist priest made spiritual contact with the Rabbit God and decided that should five same sex couples approach the temple for prayers or spiritual help, he will establish a temple dedicated to the Rabbit God.

Although at that time, they did not have specific programs for gay couples, five couples did indeed turn up. The priest took this as a sign and officially established the Rabbit Temple.

More on the background to this god, here:

The god isn't very well known, nor commonly worshipped, but he is based on an historical figure. According to the Tale of the Rabbit God that appears in the Zibuyu (子不語), a collection of supernatural stories written by Qing Dynasty scholar and poet Yuan Mei (袁枚, 1716-1798), Hu Tianbao (?#32993;天保) was an official in 18th-century, Qing Dynasty China. He fell in love with a handsome young imperial inspector of Fujian Province, but because of the inspector's higher status, Hu was afraid to reveal his feelings. After Hu was caught peeping at the inspector through a bathroom wall, he confessed his admiration for the inspector, who had him beaten to death. One month after his passing, the story goes, Hu appeared to a man from his hometown in a dream, claiming that the king of the underworld had appointed him the Rabbit God. As such, his duty was to govern the affairs of men who desire men. In the dream, he asked the man to erect a shrine to him.

As a priest, Lu often heard complaints from homosexual Taoist adherents that there was no god to answer their prayers. Believing one of his missions is to tend to the needs of people alienated from mainstream society, he set out to revive the forgotten deity.

 As his research suggests, Hu was an upper class historical figure who lived in Fujian from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty. However, according to Michael Szonyi, associate professor of Chinese history at the department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, the Rabbit God is a pure invention of Yuan, the poet, since the image of the rabbit deity doesn't appear in any other sources from Fujian.

While some aspects of the story may be fabrications, the existence of the cult of Hu Tianbao in Fujian in the 18th century is well documented in official Qing records.

This priest reckons the Rabbit God is a particularly helpful one, if you treat him respectfully:

The Rabbit God is perceived to be an affable deity, Lu said, who is willing to assist his followers in every aspect of life. Since he works for Cheng Huang (城隍), the City God, he has both the erudition and social network in the spiritual world to solve any problem mortals have, according to Lu.

Homosexuals may have an edge in the spiritual world because, "Hu Tianbao is rather self-abased both because of the way he died and the somewhat belittling title of rabbit. So if you are willing to believe in him, he will be much more grateful and work harder than other deities," Lu said.

There are several methods of worshipping, asking for and receiving answers from this divine being, but sincerity is what counts most, Lu said. For this reason, followers should address the god as Ta Yeh (大爺), or master, rather than Rabbit God. Then, those with needs can write down their names, addresses, birthdays and prayers on pieces of paper money and burn them to make sure the messages are sent to heaven.

Well, I thought it was interesting, anyway.

Gay peace for our time

Isn't it odd how everyone (well, the media and conservatives) are waiting for Turnbull to emerge and make a "peace in our time" speech regarding same sex marriage.  I'd do a photoshop, if I had time.

I do feel a bit sorry for Malcolm - he is genuinely being wedged every which way, by conservatives in his party, Labor and the Greens, his own gay party members, and more moderate voices too (with the fairly silly idea of a postal plebiscite), all on an issue that the population at large doesn't rate as very important, but which the media is happy to devote plenty of attention to.    It must be very, very annoying.  

Dangerous sea creatures great and small

First, the large:

Six men are lucky to be alive after a whale threw their boat metres into the air in the Whitsundays.

The group was returning from a reef fishing trip on Saturday afternoon, when the large humpback breached underneath the 8.5-metre aluminium vessel, near Gloucester Island.
The impact of the collision with the whale and the water was so great that those on board were violently thrown around the boat, with two men knocked unconscious.

And then, the small - the Melbourne sea lice attack.   That really is a surprising story, but apparently sea lice can be particularly ferocious down there.   There will be few toddlers allowed to play in the water near Melbourne for a while, I imagine.

Dressed against global warming

Graham Lloyd's favourite "climate scientist" Jennifer Marohasy had this photo in The Australian last week, on top of one of Lloyd's dire pieces about the controversy of one thermometer which needs checking when it records very cold minimums:

It's a bit transparent, isn't it?:  she's trying to disprove global warming by showing how much she has to dress up on a really cold day.  And is that a dead animal around her neck?

She looks at a tad batty, if you ask me.

Monkey Kings

SBS Viceland (I still don't really understand that change) showed The Monkey King 2 last week, and it's still able to be watched on SBS on Demand.

This is at least the second Chinese film I have seen lately that features at some point a massive heavenly Buddha intervening on Earth.  It would seem that the government doesn't have a problem with such ideas being promulgated in cinema, which I suppose shows how technically communist states have moved on a bit.

I find something rather watchable about movies loosely based on the Monkey King story now.  I'm even tempted to read the book.    I knew someone once (an Australian but from an Asian family) whose secret ambition in life was to produce a movie that did proper justice to the book Journey to the West.  He evidently has not achieved that.

Update:  One thing about Buddhism - if a Catholic were to become one,  the Mahayana version is surely the type to which he or she should feel more affinity (given the Communion of Saints idea is not a million miles away from bodhisattvas being able to help):

Mahayana Buddhism agrees with Theravada Buddhism that the human problem is suffering; it holds the Four Noble Truths as fundamental. But whereas Theravada holds out the ideal of the individual striving alone on the Eight-fold Path towards nirvana, Mahayana adds helpers who provide shortcuts and assistance out of compassion for those who are suffering. These helpers are called bodhisattvas, and are beings who have worked towards enlightenment and nirvana. But rather than enter nirvana, once they are able, they turn around and bring their store of wisdom, power and merit to help others along the same path. This simple idea has a number of ramifications for the goal of humanity.

1) All human beings participate in the Buddha's nature; that is to say, all humans have the essence of Buddha within themselves. Thus the goal of Mahayana Buddhism is for everyone to realize their true Buddha nature. This goal is the same as attaining nirvana (the Theravadan goal), but it is focused on the Buddha and each person's imitation of the Buddha, rather than on the release from samsara.

2) The Buddha was a bodhisattva. In contrast to the Theravadan view, Mahayana holds that the Buddha (i.e., Gautama) did not just attain nirvana. At the point at which he could have extinguished his existence in samsara, he instead returned to this world and taught other people how to attain nirvana. If he had not, then humanity would not know how to attain it. It was Buddha's compassion for the suffering of humanity that motivated him to remain in this life and to teach and preach for forty more years. Thus, the Buddha used the merit, power and wisdom he gained while striving for enlightenment to help others. He was a bodhisattva.

3) Since humans should imitate the Buddha, the Mahayana ideal is to become a bodhisattva and help others. The Theravadan ideal of the arhat is seen as too selfish, too focused on the individual, and thus without benefit for humanity in general. By emphasizing that the goal is to be a bodhisattva, Mahayana shows that it cares about the rest of humanity as a whole, not just as individuals.

4) Once a person becomes a bodhisattva, then they have the ability to help people towards nirvana and enlightenment. They may create new paths to higher stages that can be accomplished by lay people as well as monks. In fact, many forms of Mahayana focus on the laity, almost to the exclusion of interest in the sangha. Pure Land is a good example of this. Amitabha Buddha (who was initially a monk, then a Bodhisattva, and finally attained Buddha-hood) created a "pure land"--a paradise--in the "west" (i.e., in the Buddha-fields). He vowed that anyone who would call on his name could enter this land. There they could remain, or they could strive towards enlightenment, which would be much closer.

Something wrong with Taleb

Mary Beard talks about being under attack from the alt.right, and Nassim Taleb's jumping into the fray, not on her side.

Look, I don't care how smart he might be in some areas - I think it is very clear from his twitter feed and many of essays that he has some serious personality issues.   He's a thin skinned jerk, in other words.

The Atlantic had a look at the matter, and questions Taleb's reliance on DNA evidence.

Yet more Dunkirk

I was interested to watch the 2017 documentary "Dunkirk:  The New Evidence" on SBS last night.

It's pretty good.   A couple of things relevant to the movie:

*  the town of Dunkirk was a lot more damaged in real life than the movie depicted;
*  the RAF was a lot more hated on the ground than even Nolan indicated - there was an interview with a veteran who still seemed to be resentful of them after all these years.  Yet the biggest point the documentary made was that the RAF was working hard both over the channel, and far behind enemy lines preventing a lot of German planes getting to the beach;  it was just that those stuck on the beach could not see what was going on high and skies and quite some distance from them.

I recommend it.   See SBS on Demand.

An optimistic take on education

In an endeavour to get a teenage son interested in what he might do in tertiary education and future employment, my wife and I dragged him along to two recent University open days in Brisbane: last Sunday, it was QUT (Gardens Point), and today it was the University of Queensland.

We sat in on a few talks at each, and wandered around marvelling (well, I did anyway) at the astounding amount of student friendly services (by way of food and other facilities) that are available at Universities like these today.

I am old enough that I actually went to QUT before it was officially a university - back in the late seventies, early eighties.  Facilities then included one cafeteria (of dodgy quality - I rarely ate there), a licensed club that I didn't actually join (I was pretty much only a weekend drinker, and I wasn't in the clique of students who immediately took up membership), and a cinema which I recall going to once, and having to leave before the movie finished to catch a train.  It was pretty basic.

The QUT campus is now dramatically different, and to my mind, extremely attractive.  Old Government House (which I seem to recall being under near continuous restoration back in my day) is still at its heart, and is now always open as a heritage site and a very attractive one at that. 

It now has some great looking buildings and student facilities around it (I should have taken photos,) and the entire campus, though small in area, is full of trees and green spaces to a much greater degree than it did 35 (gosh) years ago.

The University of Queensland is, by contrast, not as different from those days, by my reckoning.  Sure, it also has much better student facilities, but the look of the campus, which still has very large amounts of open space around it, has not changed to the same extent.

But apart from appearances, I have to say that the impression gained from each talk we attended was a very positive one of the tertiary sector.  Sure, I guess Universities don't care for their worst lecturers or academics to be talking to the public and potential students at these events, but I still came away with the feeling that there is a much greater degree of professionalism in how universities teach and manage themselves these days.

I also have continually had that feeling when interacting with my kids' State high school.   I went to a pretty ordinary one in a working class area, but I doubt it was all that unusual for the way it seemed some pretty disinterested teachers could still make a living putting in what seemed the bare minimum effort.

That's really not the impression I get now - nearly all teachers in the State school system do genuinely seem much more professional and more enthusiastic than in my youth.     

I won't say that I don't have some misgivings about modern education:  I'm sure I posted before about how it seems to me that maths education is too heavily "verbal" in primary school these days; and I also think that there is a tendency for high schools to chose too many "young adult" novels that don't have lasting qualities in english.

But by and large, I think the education system has improved a great deal over my life time, and all the kvetching about it from the Right (and sometimes the Left) seems very undeserved.

Another radio station mystery

Apart from the creepy shortwave numbers radio stations, BBC Future has a story about another mysterious radio signal from Russia:

In the middle of a Russian swampland, not far from the city of St Petersburg, is a rectangular iron gate. Beyond its rusted bars is a collection of radio towers, abandoned buildings and power lines bordered by a dry-stone wall. This sinister location is the focus of a mystery which stretches back to the height of the Cold War.

It is thought to be the headquarters of a radio station, “MDZhB”, that no-one has ever claimed to run. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, monotonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues.

Once or twice a week, a man or woman will read out some words in Russian, such as “dinghy” or “farming specialist”. And that’s it. Anyone, anywhere in the world can listen in, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz.

A good read.

Well deserved jail for those eyebrows

That American case of the girl who texted her "boyfriend" to stop trying to back out of killing himself (it is truly an awful thing to read about) is going to jail, but not for long enough.   But I noticed one peculiar thing about her - what is up with those eyebrows?   (I half suspect they are an attempt at looking at least half crazy as a sentencing aid.)

Nazis and Ice

Well, I knew there was some Nazi interest in esoteric mystical or supernatural ideas, but I can't say that I have heard of World Ice Theory before.   All very odd.

Yes, he's as bad in private as in public

That is surely the key thing to take away from the leaked Trump phone call transcripts (as well as the fact that there must be very worried people within the government in order for the leak to happen at all).  As The Guardian writes:

Such documents should have been very closely held, accessible to only a few senior officials. Their publication reflects the intensity of the war inside the White House between rival factions – and a reminder that, for all his well-advertised toughness, the new chief of staff, John Kelly, is going to find it very hard to impose discipline on an institution that is dysfunctional from the top down.

It is quite possible that the leaker was motivated by anxiety about the national security implications of Trump’s erratic leadership – that the leak is a cry for help from inside the administration.

The transcripts of his conversations with Enrique Peña Nieto and Malcolm Turnbull show the president to be no more coherent in private than he is public: ill-informed – even about a major attack on US soil – and narcissistic to the point of absurdity.

Everything's fine

Watching members of the Cult of Trump is like a permanent run of that dog in a fire cartoon.  Here's a reliable tell:  if they refer to the Mueller investigation as the "Wussia" investigation, and claim it is dead, or a nothingburger, (or even - is going to backfire on the Democrats), they're pretty much a political idiot.  [Hi, JC.]

Axios is reporting today rumours that the investigation is going into Trump finances,  and there is a grand jury.   Over at Vox, the temporary FBI head had apparently warned a bunch of his people that they are potential witnesses. 

The Atlantic summarises all of this, and notes that the investigation is sure to run into 2018, possibly the following year too.

But yeah, sure:  there's nothing to the "Wussia" investigation.

But can he stop him watching Fox and Friends?

So, John Kelly recognizes the problem, but I have my doubts he can solve it:

When new White House chief of staff John Kelly huddled with senior staff on his first day at work, he outlined a key problem in President Donald Trump’s White House that he planned to fix: Bad information getting into the president’s hands.

Kelly told the staff that information needed to flow through him – whether on paper or in briefings –because the president would make better decisions if given good information.

I like this summary of Trump's bad sources:

In the West Wing, many of the president’s most controversial decisions have been attributed to bad information, partially because the president is easily swayed by the last person he talked to – or the last thing he read.

For example, he accused President Barack Obama of tapping his phone line in Trump Tower after seeing comments from a conservative talk show host and a Breitbart News article. He has often posted some of his most controversial tweets while watching Fox News and stewing. He has sometimes seemed to view television accounts of the news as fact more than information from people armed with classified information. He has made decisions about legal matters or major policy decisions while consulting with some aides – only to reverse them after talking to family members or friends, who he dials late at night.

He has been given information of dubious quality, from stories by GotNews.com, a blog written by a right-wing provocateur named Charles Johnson to segments from segments of debunked documentaries. He has, at times, listened to real estate friends about legislative strategy while ignoring Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

By limiting information, and making it go through proper channels, Kelly is “ensuring Trump doesn’t make his decisions based on some bullshit he watched at midnight or on Breitbart,” said Chris Whipple, who recently wrote a book on the chief-of-staff role.

I reckon all that will happen is that Hannity or someone like him will turn on Kelly, and tell Trump that he is giving Kelly too much control, and he'll be gone.

President in Fantasyland

Cattle would like you to read this article

Quite a surprising claim:

If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef

With one dietary change, the U.S. could almost meet greenhouse-gas emission goals

...
Recently Harwatt and a team of scientists from Oregon State University, Bard College, and Loma Linda University calculated just what would happen if every American made one dietary change: substituting beans for beef. They found that if everyone were willing and able to do that—hypothetically—the U.S. could still come close to meeting its 2020 greenhouse-gas emission goals, pledged by President Barack Obama in 2009.

That is, even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed—and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese—this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the target.

Ridiculous conspiracy belief, continued

I'm waiting for someone like Graham Readfearn to write a detailed post about the current Graham Lloyd crap articles in support of Jennifer Marohasy's and Jonova's paranoid conspiracy claims about the weather bureau fudging temperatures.

Lloyd is just the pits as an environment "journalist", and has been for years.   Look at the ridiculous way he frames the matter of one low temperature reading discrepancy noted by a "bush meteorologist": 

BoM strongly rejects any suggestion of manipulation.

Nonetheless, the handling of temperature data is a red-hot issue with claims and counterclaims dogging the world’s premier meteorological agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA in the US, and Britain’s Met Office.

Reports of the latest controversy at BoM have quickly and widely circulated around the world.

Yes, by Right wing culture warrior idiots who believe that deliberate conspiracy within weather bureaus and scientific organisations is a more credible explanation more than CO2 is causing temperature increases.

To disbelieve AGW now is just a special branch of conspiracy belief, and has been for some time.

And why can otherwise functioning people not recognize that they are being conned by a mere handful of contrarian amateurs into believing conspiracy? 

Update:  Nick Stokes made a comment at WUWT, where the foolish are hi-fiving each other about how this is another wound to the climate change  conspiracy:

The greatest Presidency, ever

From a Politico story about the full transcript of a recent WSJ interview with Trump, comes this snippet:

At one point, Trump seemed annoyed that one of The Wall Street Journal reporters in the room called the reaction to his July 24 Boy Scouts speech “mixed.”

“There was no mix there. That was a standing ovation from the time I walked out to the time I left, and for five minutes after I had already gone. There was no mix,” Trump said.

He added: “And I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. So there was — there was no mix.”

The chief of the Boy Scouts subsequently apologized for the political nature of the speech.

At what point does chronic, pathological, ridiculous exaggeration become a sign of a serious disorder rendering someone unsafe for high office?   Because he's been doing this since day one ("biggest inauguration crowd, ever") and there is no sign it is letting up and that reality is sinking in.

Update:  I see someone on Twitter is saying that the Boy Scouts are saying no such phone call was even made.(! if true.)

Nurse!

Urgent sedation needed again for winner of the  Happiest Outback Entertainer of the Year award, who comments regularly at Catallaxy:

So, Tired of the winning yet?
Australia is going down.
What Australians put up with is way beyond what most people do in other countries.

[rant about how bad things are in some remote aboriginal communities - which is probably true, but  the next bit] -

Some people think we should have socialism good and hard to get it over and done with, so we can rebuild.
Looking at Australia, you must come to the conclusion that we will all be living in the violence and condition of socialist oppression that you see in remote aboriginal Australia.
There will be violence and misery on a grand scale, as has been occurring in aboriginal communities for years....

From the aboriginal experience and looking at everything from Marxist indoctrination and the level of totalitarian control already exercised on us, we won’t come back from even a full term of Malcom let alone Shorten.
The insanity and corruption are real and all logical thinking will be replaced by emotions of envy and entitlement.
Countries do come back from socialism.
But only after complete and utter devastation.

 Update:   the happy catastrophist is also discussing the prospect of same sex marriage with a foolish libertarian type who has turned up on Catallaxy to support it:

The gay activism which is Marxist hatred of the west using gays as a victim group, is quite noticeably bringing down our civilisation, which is it’s aim, and with which envy and entitlement (displayed in your first paragraph) is used.
Your blindness to this, due to emotion over maturity and any recognition of what gave rise to the civilisation that gave you so much, will definitely cause our civilisation to collapse, as is starting to happen.
We will then be replaced by a civilisation that will throw you off the top of the nearest building.
Or burn you alive.
You f.....ing entitled idiot.

 "..emotion over maturity..." - lolz, as the kids say.