Annihilated

I saw the reasonably well reviewed made for Netflix science fiction movie Annihilation on the weekend.

I'm puzzled that it got any good reviews.  None of the characters felt real;  the reason for and aim of the all female expedition was poorly explained; the science was vague and bogus;  and the alien thing causing all the problem was destroyed pathetically easily.  

Science fiction dealing with fast evolution and genetic changes is rarely good - I'm thinking of the not very funny Evolution, the rapidly growing alien thing on the space station in Life, and now this.  At least those movies got bad reviews.  This one should have too.

Trump cult watch

Of course Steve Kates and his not-very-merry band of Western Civilisation catastrophists at Catallaxy think the instant classic G7 photograph is great because (on their interpretation) it shows a resolute Trump resisting the pressure of Europeans who are the source of all that's wrong with the world: what with their social security safety nets, universal health care systems, higher taxation and acceptance of refugee immigrants from regions destabilised by the US. 

Here's one of their oh-so-funny quips (if you are living in 1950, if not earlier):

"Percy Popinjay" is quite the gentleman, apparently. 

Back in reality land, I liked Krugman's tweet take on Trump:

Etc.   (He goes on to complain about the inadvertent "pro Trump" bias that is given by journalists who don't want to just call out Trump, but try to "both side" the argument. He's right.)

When deplorables meet

Who knows what could come out of the Singapore summit?   Surely anything is possible when you put two vain, autocratic idiots in a room.  (Sure, Trump hasn't blown up any generals - although I have often wondered whether the stories of movie style show killings by Kim Jong-Un have been propaganda pieces.) 

I do wonder what might happen if, through some bit of espionage intrigue, Kim is struck down via poisoning or some other sophisticated assassination attempt while in Singapore.   Would the faithful generals back home try to launch a nuclear attack, or would they think that it was a great opportunity to get rid of his dynasty? As to who would try to take out Kim:   well, if the Putin plan is to bring disorder into the rest of the world so Russia can fill the vacuum, it seems to me that he may well think there could be advantage in it happening.

If I were looking after security in Singapore, I would be looking very carefully at any person with a Russian connection who happens to be in town. 

Update:   I didn't read this before I wrote this post, but I see that Hot Air has a post speculating on the security risk to Kim, too.   It says a Russian cargo jet followed Kim's jet to Singapore too, with an armoured vehicle and a private supply of food.   That would suggest it might be easier for Russians to cause him harm that I realised.

Catching up with TMBG

I used to follow They Might be Giants very closely, but as with all bands, I found some diminishing returns on a couple of CDs and drifted away.  Spotify has let me catch up with there albums of the last 8 or so years.

I have to say, I'm very keen on Glean from 2015.   And listening back on my favourite albums (Mink Car, and Factory Showroom), it's really incredible that a decade or two after those they were are still making songs that are so distinctly TMBG in quirky lyrics (often on dark or vaguely sinister themes) but counterpointed by enormously catchy, upbeat tunes.   The appeal of the band has always been the absurdist amusement of this contrast (right from their first song - Don't Let's Start) - and as I say, it's hard to believe they have been able to mine that successfully for so long. 

These clips are just graphic, but here are two songs I like, a lot.  (Erase a bit more so.)  If you can tell exactly what it's about, let me know.





Have I said this before on this blog - if ever there was a band that could have a musical play made based on their songs, this would be it.  Forget Queen - TMBG's output has been enormous, with a huge number of immediately likeable songs which could be thematically tied together.  Of course, it might have to involve obsessive boyfriends, and death, and a touch of mental illness - but Little Shop of Horrors managed fun with a supposedly dark theme.

About Bourdain

Seems that Anthony Bourdain was way more popular than I had realised.   There's a really major outpouring of grief and upset at his death underway.

I didn't mind him, but wasn't his greatest fan.  I thought Kitchen Confidential was a bit over-rated, but it certainly did serve as a (perhaps inadvertent) warning (as was Ratatouille, now that I think of it) to any young adult interested in a career as a chef  that a good proportion of their fellow careerists will be crazy.   (It seems that before his book, there was no clear understanding in the public mind as to just how crazy the profession could be.)   And I do tend to worry about memoirs which talk too cheerfully about the dissolute days of youth spent under the effects of copious amounts of drugs - they can work as an inadvertent advertisement for experimentation, as well as miss the perspective of other people who had to put up with them at that time. 

His TV persona was generally likeable, and he did go to interesting places, even if the food there wasn't always appetizing.   But I still had my reservations (pun unintended):   perhaps he came across as a bit too cheerful and relentlessly convivial at times;  rather like some comedians, that can cause me to wonder whether some of it is a front. 

Still, yeah, it's sad.

Update:   Gee, in reaction to Bourdain's suicide, Zack Beauchamp at Vox has written one of the clearest and best optimistic takes on depression and overcoming it that I have ever read, based on his personal experience.    Maybe it should be prescribed reading for all teenagers....

Cynical about treaties

First the usual disclaimer:   like most white Australians, I don't have any detailed knowledge about aboriginal community management, particularly in the Northern Territory.   So anyone who does is welcome to call my comments ignorant and ill informed.

That said - I am completely cynical about the latest round of "but if only we can get the aboriginal communities involved in decision making process, then everything will start to get better" talk that has culminated in the Northern Territory starting a "treaty process":

On Friday the chief minister of the territory, Michael Gunner, arrived at Barunga festival to sign an agreement to undertake a treaty process that he called “an open slate. We will start with nothing on or off the table.”

Gunner’s message was also directed at his own side of the table. “Change of this order may be the hardest within government itself. We’re the biggest risk.

“So I’m saying to the departments, this is non-negotiable. The old way is finished.”
“At the pace communities are comfortable, the government is ceding decision-making power back to where it belongs – the communities.”

Gunner told the crowd he was proud to have signed the memorandum of understanding, calling it “the most significant Aboriginal affairs reform in the NT this generation”.

“It is right we lead this process because it is decent, because we are alive to Aboriginal culture like no other jurisdiction, but also because it is smart. Treaty – reconciliation, healing, empowerment – is fundamentally good for every Territorian.”

We seem to be in some sort of perpetual cycle of "government will cede more control to communities/elders/land councils and that will improve everything"  to "hey, wait: the way we've set this up just isn't working - maybe governments need to take more direct control here"  and back to "this time, when government cedes more control to the communities/elders/land councils it will improve everything."  The cycle period seems to be around 20 - 30 period.    We are currently in a period where the "ceding more control is the answer" is on the upswing again.

The immediate problem I see with this feel good talk from Gunner is that the communities aren't truly going to be able to control the source of their money - government revenue and budgeting - so telling them they're going to have real power to make all important decisions is pretty illusory.   I would bet my last dollar that it is still going to be a case of "well, of course it would be ideal if residents in this isolated community X didn't have to go to town Y to get service Z - but there's only so much money to go around.  Someone has to make the tough, financially constrained, decision."

And surely it's not as if Northern Territory departments over the last 40 years haven't tried consultative engagement with the representative community groups of the day.

I don't want to sound like a letter writer to The Australian on this issue, but there does seem to be an inordinate amount of fanciful thinking along the lines "if just we can get the way Aboriginal voices are reflected in decision making right, everything will be better."   And the problem is that all of the effort wasted on "getting the model right" must be wasteful of money and effort that could be put into more productive things.

Some things are pretty obvious:

*  isolated communities with no ties to economic activity (and which cannot sustain themselves with local farming and maintenance)  are never going to easily survive as healthy, good places to live or visit - regardless of the colour or race of the resident.  

*  aboriginal groups and representatives are never of unified voice and argue a lot amongst themselves.   No representative system is going to be perfect - find one that is modest in cost, not obviously capable of easy corruption, and stick with it - but don't ever imagine that it will keep everyone happy.

*  the alcohol, drug and social problems are typical of what you see in indigenous communities around the world  which suffer the culture shock of being suddenly hit by modernity.  Pride in maintaining at least elements of previous culture might help, but it's been tried everywhere and is certainly no cure all.  Obsessing too much about culture - going on about cultural appropriation and whinging if an aboriginal word is obscured on a magazine cover - is utterly unproductive and self -indulgent to the real problems.

*  pinning hopes on changes to representation in government decisions is just rearranging the deck chairs on a ship that, if not actually sinking, is always going to be barely seaworthy, springing leaks everywhere.

Western civilisation and universities

I'm not entirely sure why people, including Jason Soon, should be so concerned over ANU or Sydney University saying "no thanks" for funding for a degree in "Western Civilisation".

Brian Schmidt says it was due to it being clear that the funders wanted an "unprecedented" level of influence.  Given Tony Abbott's comments in Quadrant, I find that far from an implausible claim.  Can you imagine Tony taking it well if some academic or student on the course started writing articles cynical or critical of aspects of the civilisation that, apparently, hasn't been studied enough?

As for the complaint that if universities take funding from foreign governments for "research centres", why do they baulk at conservative's money?:   it probably does come down to whether it's a matter of soft influence, or hard influence.   Surely, foreign money is given in at least the hope of encouraging sympathetic treatment; but if it is given on a clear basis that all studies are expected to be positive, well, I can understand universities rejecting it.

And besides, isn't the money going to be accepted by some university or other (wasn't the Australian Catholic University saying "pick me", or what about Bond University?)   Or is it that the Ramsay Centre is wanting to deliberately annoy only universities with a Leftist reputation by buying their way inside?     

Talking up a need for somewhat old fashioned study of the glories of Western Civilisation has been a thing coming from the IPA and its fellow travellers for some time now.   Conservatives like the idea because they want to fight cultural relativism; libertarian/classical liberals tend to want it more so they can go on and on about how fantastic capitalism is, because that suits their own small government/low regulation/low tax agenda.  (You have to give capitalism free space to breath - how could you want to hurt something that has done so much for you?)   

I have some sympathy to the anti-relativism view, but I can't really see that this is likely to be a successful way to promote it.   And libertarians can always comfort themselves with already owing RMIT - where Davidson, Potts, Berg and even Trump's world champion suck up Kates make a living.

I don't really see the Ramsay plan being a good use of money... 

Counting bees

I suppose I am a little surprised about this, too:

Math Bee: Honeybees Seem To Understand The Notion Of Zero

The details:

Howard trained one group of bees to understand that sugar water would always be located under the card with the least number of symbols. "They could come and see two circles versus three circles, or four triangles versus one triangle, or something like that," she explains.
The bees quickly learned to fly to the card with the fewest symbols, an impressive feat.
But then they got another test: The researchers presented the bees with a card that had a single symbol — and a blank card that had nothing on it.
The bees seemed to understand that "zero" was less than one, because they flew toward the blank card more often than you'd expect if they were choosing at random — although they weren't that good at distinguishing between the two.
It got easier for them when they had to compare zero with a larger number. "When we showed them zero versus six, they did that at a much higher level than zero versus one," Howard says. "So what tells us is that they consider zero as an actual quantity along the number line. They're actually better at doing zero versus six because those two numbers are further apart."

The reaction:

"This is quite amazing, in my view, that bees can really do it," says Andreas Nieder, a scientist who studies how animals' process the idea of "nothing" and was not part of the research team.
He says zero was discovered relatively recently in human history, and was essential in the development of both mathematics and science. "It's a hard and very abstract concept," Nieder says. "It is a sort of eccentric uncle in the number family."
Previous experiments have shown that honeybees have some facility with numbers, because they were able to count landmarks as they foraged around for a sweet reward. But in these tests, the insects couldn't count very high — only to about four.

Update:   Now that I think about it...isn't a simpler explanation that the bees were just learning the rule "the less cluttered a card appears, the more likely a reward"?    If so, can you interpret this as understanding "zero"?   I mean, a blank card is less cluttered than anything with symbols on it, and the more symbols, the more obviously less cluttered is the blank card.  

Is this a case of over-interpretation of a result?

Culture war noted

Tim Blair's been busy ridiculing Jonathan Green (that's nothing new) over the Meanjin cover storm in a (not very important) tea cup, but this time he has a point.  He notes that Warren Mudine, who has drifted so far Right that he attended the Friedman libertarian/we-hate-taxes/climate-change?-meh   conference a couple of weeks ago, has joined in ridiculing the rush to apologise for a bit of magazine cover art that obscures an aboriginal word.   I don't trust the judgement of Mundine - I think he's auditioning for the role of aboriginal Mark Latham - but as with Blair, despite this, he has a point.

The aboriginal cultural grievance industry can get quite ridiculous.   And, as I noted in a post earlier this year, it seems that some aboriginal groups are increasingly  radicalised in terms of expectations of some sort of self governance within government, and the making of treaties that would mean some sort of land rights/compensation way beyond Mabo.   It isn't going to happen.

As I've said before, I would not care if Australia Day is moved, given that it's a poorly historically justified day for celebrating the start of a new nation.

Beyond that, there comes a point at which activists and their supporters need to be told they're denying the obvious - that cultures blend and change all the time;  the symbolism of the change of place names does extremely little for the well being of people;  cultural pride does not extend to being able to stop other people using parts of it creatively.   (I heard on some Radio National show earlier this week a familiar female aboriginal activist talking about the upset that tribal elders had years ago when they realised how many European people, including women, were using didgeridoos for busking and general entertainment, and they discussed it for years before finally realising that the cat was already out of the bag, and what can you do to stop people playing them anyway.  I could have told them that at the start.)   

To have sympathy to the genuine problems of aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders should not require that you have to lose sight of common sense and obvious facts about the nature of culture and unrealistic expectations as to control over it.   Yet that is what is a large part of aboriginal advocacy now insists upon, and the likes of Jonathan Green are too happy to go along with it.

Deserves time off

I presume that office workplace productivity in Brisbane, if not Australia, is at some sort of record low today as a result of the exquisitely off the chart, absurd embarrassment quotient of how the "poo jogger" was outed via explicit, crystal clear, in-the-act photo posted by news sites.    Throw in his position as a "national quality manager" of our best known (and controversial) retirement village corporation, and how can you not talk about that at work??  It's impossible.  And the amount of puns and poor taste jokes - I think managers all over the city should just be telling staff they can have an hour off, get it out of their system, before starting work again.

As for Mr Macintosh - I think he should just look at leaving the country, not only his job.

We already knew this, but still worth reading

Trump, Fox News, and Twitter have created a dangerous conspiracy theory loop

It shows how the latest Trump conspiracy tweet originated with - for God's sake - Gateway Pundit, from which it was promoted on Fox "News" and then into the President's brain.  

If you don't see the dangerous nature of that, and aren't appalled by Rupert making money out of running a conspiracy news network, there's something wrong with you.

More Jordan Peterson criticism

This review of his 12 Rules for Life book in the Times Literary Supplement pretty much seals it for me - Peterson can be safely ignored as having little of value to say.   The criticisms of his selective quoting of nutty male shooters is particularly effective.   

A discouraging bit of information

Someone at the Interpreter looks at the military capacity of China to stage an invasion of Taiwan, and makes this observation:

....the Chinese are doing the necessary training and planning needed to master amphibious operations. President Xi Jinping told the PLA to prepare to take on Taiwan by 2020, and it is doing so.

I can't imagine the sort of international turmoil an attempted forced takeover of Taiwan would entail.  

An unexpected way for climate change to kill (in India, at least)

I hadn't heard this before, from an interview about India suffering under climate change:

Now let’s come to violence. What is really startling was the dowry deaths. The study I’ve quoted found that many people treat dowry deaths as income smoothing, and that’s a very provocative way of putting it…you kill your wife and marry a new wife and have an income when crop income goes down because of the drought. But they’ve seen that correlation. It’s something to keep in mind.

Meanwhile, I hadn't even noticed that parts of India have been having a heatwave:

Northern India, like neighbouring Pakistan, is in the grip of a heatwave, with temperatures reaching 47C. A blanket of hot air has settled on Delhi clearing pavements across the usually busy capital. India is particularly vulnerable to temperature increases associated with climate change. Since 1992, about 25,000 Indians are estimated to have died because of heatwaves. Yet the country is quietly optimistic that it can prevent at least some of those deaths.

The problems of Europe

Found via Peter Whiteford's tweets, an interesting blog post by Branko Milanovic about why Europe is having problems caused by its wealth, and how they are not likely to just go away.

Speaking of Europe, another example of how Brexiters just tried to wing their way through the enormous practical problems of their scheme:

Brexit nightmare: The 27km traffic jams at the Dover border

The three new drivers of the Australian economy

*  craft beer
*  burger joints (other than the fast food chains)
*  salmon (farming and eating)

As it happens, I pretty much approve of all three (with a reservation about the number of burger joints).  

PS:  my daughter observed last weekend that she could live purely on salmon (pan fried with crispy skin), mashed potato, and garlic beans.   I then cooked that for dinner.   [My wife is a fantastic cook, but I do make the best mashed potato.] 

Whiteford on progressive tax

A good article here by Peter Whiteford, looking at the question of how much tax the rich pay.

I liked this part in particular (my bold):

The most obvious reason why the top 1 per cent or 10 per cent pay a higher share of tax is that they receive a much higher share of taxable income. Tax Office figures show that in 2015–16 the highest 1 per cent of income taxpayers — just over 100,000 people earning $330,000 or more per year, which adds up to about $72 billion of taxable income, or an average of roughly $720,000 per taxpayer — paid 16.9 per cent of net tax but received 9.6 per cent of all taxable income. (After their income taxes, that 1 per cent of taxpayers still netted about 7.2 per cent of all after-tax income.)

So even if Australia had a completely flat tax — a single rate with no tax-free threshold — very high–income earners would still pay close to 10 per cent of all income taxes. They pay 16.0 per cent rather than 9.6 per cent because Australia has a progressive income tax scale: the rate of tax paid increases as the taxpayer’s income increases.

Puts all of the "but the rich pay too much tax" whiners into perspective.

Whiteford is like the perfect antidote to Sinclair Davidson, Adam Creighton, and David Leyonhjelm:  knowledgeable, fair, reasonable and always polite.

Wondering about American employment

Recently, I was talking to an Australian businessman (a high level corporate manager type in supermarket retail) who had taken on a job for a (I think Southern State based) US supermarket chain for a few years.   He was based in Florida, but had travelled a lot with the job.

You may well think that Australia goes too far with its workers' rights (I do, having recently only realised that a worker can have unpaid sick leave of up to 3 months before they can be fired for, well,  never being at work) - but it is pretty incredible to hear about how draconian the work conditions in a Red state in the US can be.   Absolutely minimal leave (I think, 5 days p.a. for any reason?) for the first few years (with consequences such as a mother being at work the afternoon after her son's funeral);  the low, low, low minimum wage (with no chance of top up from customers, as with tipping in the hospitality industry);  a significant number of workers aged over 80 simply to keep health insurance cover; and 18 year old shelf stackers wearing pistols at work, which makes an Australian feel a touch nervous given the number of times you read of workers who "go postal".

Given this, it does make me wonder whether "full employment" in the US is all that it's cracked up to be compared to a country with strong work and pay standards such as Australia.  I mean, surely a significant percentage of those in the US could be the working poor.

But, I was surprised to read this column a couple of days ago in the WAPO by Robert Samuelson:  Why the economy is roaring.

He makes the obvious point - things were headed this way under Obama, and it's ridiculous and partisan blindness to claim Trump is solely responsible.

But what was more interesting was survey results regarding satisfaction with their lot:

“Nearly three-quarters of adults say they are either living comfortably (33 percent) or doing OK (40 percent), when asked to describe how they are managing financially,” the report says. The share “doing OK” has risen more than 10 percentage points since 2013. Similarly, in 2013, 13 percent of Americans found it “difficult to get by”; by 2017, the comparable figure was only 7 percent.

Labor markets are tighter. In 2017, 52 percent of workers received a wage increase, up from 46 percent in 2016. Gains were especially large for workers with a high school degree or less; 49 percent of these workers got a raise, up from 38 percent in 2016. Although many indicators of economic well-being were lower for blacks and Hispanics compared with whites, they were much higher than in 2013.

I am really curious about the 40% figure for "doing OK".   Does this reflect innate US optimism about their lot in life and/or potential for upwards social mobility, or is it more a case of substantial ignorance about how good the social safety net is in more centrist political countries like Australia, Canada, and most of Europe?

I mean, other parts of the survey indicate there is something a bit odd about the "doing OK" category:

About 40 percent of adults say they would have trouble meeting a $400 emergency expense; however, the share was 50 percent in 2013.   

So, about 25% are not financially "comfortable" or "doing OK", but a further 15% who are presumably in the "doing OK" category would have trouble finding a spare $400 for an emergency?

This points to somewhat lower standards to what "doing OK" might mean, surely.

Americans might be feeling pretty good about the economy for the moment, but to an outsider, their judgement about such matters seems peculiarly, well, American.

Striking similarities

Let's see:

*     widely understood to only have power due to the support of a foreign nation [tick]

*     considers himself an autocrat completely above the law [tick]

*     fires underlings on a whim  [tick]

*     has a weight problem, and is generally weird looking [tick]

*    maintains position due to 

       a.    cowardice of other national politicians [tick] and

       b.    a large element of brainwashed population who only view his approved propaganda [tick]

*     thinks meeting other autocrats is cool [tick]

*     is rarely seen with his wife [tick]

I'll probably think of more during the day....

Conspiracy talk is only fair in one direction, apparently

Ha.  Karen Townsend at Hot Air complains about the "conspiracy theories" surrounding Melania Trump not being seen for the last three weeks (after spending a week in hospital for a minor procedure - something which apparently itself was unusual.)

This is all a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, according to Townsend. 

If you ask me, the mainstream media has actually downplayed the peculiar circumstances of her absence - last week, they noted her having tweeted that she is busy working while out of the public eye, without expressing any doubt (as far as I could see) as to whether the tweet was genuinely written by her.

This absence is genuinely suspicious, if you ask me.   If I had to take a guess, it would be more about workshopping with someone representing Donaldas to how she can get out of this marriage during the presidency with minimal damaging optics for him. 

And how ludicrous is it for anyone even half supportive of Trump, who thrives on conspiracy theories that are as nutty and illfounded as hell, complaining about a moderate bit of speculation from the Left?