Some Latham stuff

As you might expect, Clarke & Dawe's take on Latham is an instant classic. See it here if you missed it last night. (I heard it replayed twice on ABC local radio today.)

The simplest, but most accurate, cartoon about the diaries is probably this one here.

On a more serious note, you would have to wonder about how dire his mental state would be if his wife ever leaves him, given how much he goes on about the joy of being with his kids. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems hard to believe that the contents of the diaries could do anything other than harm his wife's opinion of him. (To be fair, I have not read it, because I don't want to financially reward him.) But even if everything else in the book is not so bad, Andrew Bolt's list of the worst bits is bad enough. It would seem from some of the extracts that he is, in many respects, incredibly shallow. This extract quoted in Bolt's column floored me:

"Anderson found his own (Christian) faith as a young man when he accidentally killed his sister with a misdirected cricket shot to the head.

"Poor old Ando, he should have just played a straight bat and ignored all this pagan idolatry, masquerading as religion, all those kiddie-fiddlers masquerading as priests."

But of course, before the election, he was having to pretend to be not hostile to religion.
Look at this Compass interview from last year. Some extracts:

"Mark Latham:
No I don’t find it in religion myself. It’s more just in the interaction between people, the desire to be a social animal, a social person, a social being. And you’re really wanting to live your life with positive messages from other people. You couldn’t live your life in isolation. Our whole existence I think comes from the gratification of helping others and then having that assistance reciprocated. And it’s that two-way flow of helping people that – a caring for people, loving for people, that I think gives us the greatest joy in life. "

Geraldine Doogue:
So it’s a sort of humanism?

Mark Latham:
Yeah, I’m a humanist, yeah that’s a good description of my philosophy. It’s the human desire to want to be part of society. What does that mean? It means a society where we build self-esteem by helping others and then having that assistance reciprocated. "

I may be wrong, but it seemed to me he only just realised he was a humanist when Geraldine suggested it....

And he certainly knows how to spread the love around at the moment.

"Geraldine Doogue:
You were also in the past, I’ll quote you: “I’m a hater”. This was 2002. “Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity”.

Mark Latham:
Yeah, that was an interview with Maxine McKew where we were talking about public housing cuts and the abolition of the better cities program in my electorate. And I started talking about how I hated what the government had done in policy terms to disadvantage my own constituency. So I suppose it flowed into a more personal description that I wouldn’t repeat now and probably wrong to express it that way at the time. I think you can have strong emotions in politics but it’s best to stick them, keep them to outcomes that matter for other people rather than the things about yourself. Probably hating others is a very corrosive thing in public life and a sign they might have got the better of you."

Irony of the highest order...

"Geraldine Doogue:
Do you see yourself as a Christian?

Mark Latham:
No, I’m agnostic. I think there’s a force, a spiritual world beyond the material. But I’m not in a position to define it, let alone put it into a certain form of religious practice.

Geraldine Doogue:
Are you curious about it?

Mark Latham:
Yeah I am, I am. I’m curious about it and at different times in my life I feel like I’ve had maybe an inkling of a connection to it...."

I saw this on TV, and thought at the time that he looked extremely unconvincing as he said it. I had more than an inkling of an attempt to suck up to the Compass audience.

What a pathetic character to have come within a few percentage points of being our PM.

I am hoping some blogger will extract further appalling bits from the book, so I don't have to buy it.

Helios Airways crash

Salon.com Technology | Ask the pilot

Speaking of "Ask the Pilot", as I did in the last post, I have now seen his article (link above) about the likely cause of the Helios crash. Seems a case of pilots not recognizing the pressurization alarm for what it was. As he explains, it is still hard to believe the pilots could not work this out. (Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, even if the pilots passed out, couldn't a flight attendant have had a chance at reviving them? I suppose it depends on how long it took an attendant to go into the cockpit. And for that matter, I suppose they lock the cockpit now.) All very interesting...

Dumping it

How Do You Dump Fuel From a Plane? - Just turn on your fuel dumping system.

An aviation term that I didn't fully understand is dealt with at the above Slate link.

The Salon "Ask the Pilot" column is a pretty good source of aviation info for the general reader too. Only trouble is, you have to be seen walking through a Bush Derangement Zone to get to it.

Ye Olde Pregnancy Test

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Pregnancy test link to frog fall

The link above contains this bit of medical history, about which I have never heard before:

"In the 1930s and 40s, live female Xenopus frogs were used widely in Europe, Australasia and north America in pregnancy testing.

A sample of the woman's urine was injected under the frog's skin; if the woman was pregnant, a hormone in her urine caused the frog to ovulate.

Alternative tests involved male frogs and toads, which produced sperm in response to the human hormone gonadotrophin.

Thousands of Xenopus were exported from Africa each year, potentially carrying Batrachochytrium with them, and - perhaps through occasional escapes - delivering it to the habitats of other continents, where it could inflict major damage on amphibian species that were more vulnerable. "

(Luckily, home testing kits today do not involve any combination of frog and pee at all!)

And the relevance of this: it may have the source of the fungus that is now widely believed to be decimating frog populations in many parts of the world. (The idea that frog researchers have also inadvertently been spreading it while on field trips has also been suggested.)

All you ever wanted to know about sex - weevil sex

Male weevils give females the gift of youth� Insects slow down their consorts' biological clocks.

You can't help but like a science article which contains a subheading "magic ejaculate", can you?

Or this line: "insect ejaculates are a soup of proteins and peptides that are immensely complex."

How do they even collect weevil ejaculate for study? Tiny little condoms?

Drinking with baby on board

Key Neural System At Risk From Fetal Alcohol Exposure

The study linked to above indicates that even quite low level drinking during pregnancy looks to be dangerous for the baby's brain, at least in monkeys.

I suspect that Australian doctors, who are currently far from consistent on this point, will probably have to swing around eventually to strongly recommending no alcohol at all during pregnancy.

Bad Existentialists

I don't care much for French philosophers of the modern variety, and I have never read Sartre or De Beauvoir, but I knew a little of their "open" relationship and the suspicion that, despite all the philosophical window dressing, De Beauvoir was a smart woman who didn't recognize she was still a victim of sexist adventurism on Sartre's part.

This week, a book review in the New Yorker has a good long discussion about their relationship. (New Yorker book reviews, I am finding, can be very good reading.)

The article reminded me of Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals", a very readable and amusing biographical examination of the contrast between the public pronouncements of various "intellectuals" and their private lives. I can't find my copy right now, but I don't think Sartre got a chapter. I remember Marx did, and it was very enlightening.

Anyway, the book review points out that Sartre was not exactly the best physical specimen:

".. she fell in love with Sartre, once she got over the physical impression he made. Sartre was about five feet tall, and he had lost almost all the sight in his right eye when he was three; he dressed in oversized clothes, with no sense of fashion; his skin and teeth suggested an indifference to hygiene. He had the kind of aggressive male ugliness that can be charismatic, and he wisely refrained from disguising it. He simply ignored his body."

I wonder how often he bathed..

De Beauvoir explained their pact to each have affairs, but always tell the other about it, as follows:

"One single aim fired us, the urge to embrace all experience, and to bear witness concerning it. At times this meant that we had to follow diverse paths—though without concealing even the least of our discoveries from one another. When we were together we bent our wills so firmly to the requirements of this common task that even at the moment of parting we still thought as one. That which bound us freed us; and in this freedom we found ourselves bound as closely as possible. "

Yadda yadda.

So off they went, having an extraordinary number of affairs, it seems, and even though she denied it to interviewers while alive, it turns out from her posthumously published letters that De Beauvoir jumped into bed with many women too. It also turns out, by the sounds of it, that they were both unpleasant people:

"The most appalling discovery, for many readers, was what '“telling each other everything'” really meant. The correspondence was filled with catty and disparaging remarks about the people Beauvoir and Sartre were either sleeping with or trying to sleep with, even though, when they were with those people, they radiated interest and affection. Sartre, in particular, was always speaking to women of his love and devotion, his inability to live without them—every banality of popular romance. Words constituted his principal means of seduction: his physical approaches were on the order of groping in restaurants and grabbing kisses in taxis. With the publication of '“Letters to Sartre,'” it was clear that, privately, he and Beauvoir held most of the people in their lives in varying degrees of contempt. They enjoyed, especially, recounting to each other the lies they were telling."

Reminds me of a certain ex politician of current note, too.

People become (quite rightly) upset when clergy or other prominent Christians are revealed to be hypocritical in their personal lives, especially in the field of sexual activity. Books like "Intellectuals", and this story of a couple of pop philosophers of the 20th century, serve to remind us that purely secular figures, many of whom claim to be modern rebels against the strictures of religious conservatism, also often turn out to be extremely hypocritical in private, and to deserve no great respect.

There's lots more in the review, go read it quickly while it is still up on the site.

Cat from hell sent to heaven

In Slate, the story of cat so bad it had to be put down. Maybe its brain controlling tricks just weren't working....

North Korea blinks?

News From KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK

So, it appears to be a satisfactory outcome for all concerned in that North Korea will (apparently) come back on board the nuclear non-proliferation train.

I am waiting to see how this is sold on the DPRK news site, linked to above. As of the time of writing this, the news service did not indicate much chance of success. Part of it read (sorry, no permanent link available):

"Laporte, commander of the U.S. forces in south Korea, when interviewed by American media recently, disclosed that the United States is "modifying its military strategy in the direction of depending on ultra-modern weapons to cope with the possible outbreak of military conflict with north Korea." Rodong Sinmun Friday says this in a signed commentary.
It goes on:
Multi-faceted dialogues and cooperation are now brisk between the north and the south of Korea and the six-way talks are under way to settle the nuclear issue and put an end to the military confrontation for the purpose of building confidence. The reckless remarks made by him against this backdrop, hinting at setting out a new military strategy, cannot be construed otherwise than a revelation of the U.S. design to chill the atmosphere of inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and provoke a war of aggression on the Korean Peninsula at any cost." etc.

Kim Jong's spin doctors will be working hard tonight.

I am also wondering what the American Left's take will be. Somehow it will be twisted into anti-Bush.

More on Latham

Latham had a real spray on Radio National this morning, clearly exasperating Fran Kelly as most of his responses did not address the questions she asked anyway.

I am a little worried that my initial reaction to the Enough Rope interview posted below indicates too much sympathy for him. I didn't mean to suggest that it was solely a late realisation of the value of his family life that made him leave politics; it would seem it was just as much a realisation that he was never going to get his way with a large proportion of his fellow party members who he held in contempt for various reasons.

The fact that he is so sensitive to rumours of sexual misdeeds (and goes on and on about unpleasant it was having to deny them to his wife) suggests that he does in fact have some such stuff in his past that he is guilty about.

I wonder what his wife thinks about the diaries. The extracts over the weekend suggests such a nasty, unpleasant streak that I would have thought he should worry that, even if he has been completely faithful to her, she may have a sudden insight into his character that may shake the marriage anyway.

More to come from the full publication today.

It's Spring and the microbes are singing....

On the Radio National Religion Report last week, a story about the new "season" for the Uniting Church, called "A Season of Creation". Over the next few weeks, there will be Forrest Sunday, River Sunday, and (in other years, apparently,) Storm Sunday.

Lets look at some of the suggested liturgies for this.

"Minister: Christ, we come into your presence today to worship in this sanctuary called Earth.

Congregation: A planet filled with your presence, quivering in the forests, vibrating in the land, pulsating in the wilderness, shimmering in the rivers.

Minister: God, reveal yourself to us in this place, and show us your face in all creation.

Congregation: Holy, holy, holy, Earth is filled with GodÂ’s presence."

Hmmm. Reflecting on God's majesty via the majesty of nature is no issue. But the form of expression here is pretty cringeworthy, isn't it? What with all the "vibration" words. And asking God "to show his face in all creation" is a bit of a risk, as some of his creation may well illustrate the issue of "natural evil", which is a not insignificant one for many people, causing some to lose their faith entirely.

Worse to come:

"Rev. Rowena Harris: We invite the farmlands to sing with us.

Congregation: Wheatfields, orchards and vineyards, red gums, gardens and wetlands.

Minister: We celebrate the song of the soil.

Congregation: Sing soil, sing.

Rowena Harris: We invite the ground to stir deep below.

Congregation: Lifegiving microbes restoring the soil, beetles and worms preparing our food.

Minister: We celebrate the song of the soil.

Congregation: Sing, soil, sing."

It's one thing to sing with St Francis of Assisi "all creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing..." when it stirs imagery of anthropomorphic creatures praising God (think "The Lion King"). But this liturgy seems to invite microbes to join in. Just the good ones, or is smallpox invited too?

Now a bit of group apology:

A small piece of rosemary, eucalyptus leaves or some other fragrant symbol of remembrance may be given to the people as a reminder of our past connection with creation.

As we rub this fragrant symbol in our hands we remember the countryside
where we have worked and played.

"O God, we thank you for the beauty of creation and the gift of
land.

We remember and confess how we have poisoned and polluted the soils in our
garden planet.

Christ, once buried in Earth, hear our cry.

We regret that we have forgotten Earth and treated this garden planet as a
beast to be tamed and a place to be ruled.

Christ, the hope of all creation, we lament our failings."

A Confession. A symbol of how we have poisoned the soils of our land may be
raised in the sanctuary. This symbol may be bleached animal bones or some
other symbol meaningful to the local community. This symbol may be
deposited on the red soil of the Earth bowl in the sanctuary.

"We have killed living soils with excessive chemicals, turned fertile fields into
lifeless salt plains and cleared rich lands of wildlife.

Christ, the source of all life, we are sorry. We are sorry."

Sounds like it might build up to include some nudity and ritual sex under the full moon. But no, despite a careful look through the Season of Creation web site, I can't find any.

The John Howard point about apologies is pertinent here: there isn't a hell of a lot of point in apologising for a "wrong" you haven't done yourself. The most that a city reared person can apologize for is eating fruit from a farmer who may have, or may not have, failed to followed good farm management advice or laws.

These are just a few extracts from some of the liturgies, but with every one I read I have issues.

Clearly, there is have no problem with Christians liking trees and (some) animals. Everyone does. While most of "evolutionary psychology" is a crock, it's probably a fair call to say that a certain fondness for nature is in built into our genes.

Catholics have St Francis of Assisi, and even had a decent go (via Teilhard de Chardin) at trying to absorb evolution into its theology. For the protestants, the Bible has sufficient comments about nature to enable arguments that humans were both given nature to "rule" over (presumably to eat and use it) and to protect it. But the details of any theology of ecology are rather like a Rorschach Test, telling us more about the people doing the theology than the nature of God.

The biggest problem I have with putting Nature on a pedestal, from either a Christian or secular environmentalist perspective, is that it contains a specious assumption that there was a "perfect" nature to start with. But such an idea is really only consistent with Creationism and a belief in a pre-Fall paradise on earth, which are hardly likely to be matters of belief which the great majority of Uniting Church people (and no secular environmentalist) would accept.

If you don't believe in creationism, you presumably accept the scientific history of the Earth which shows, at best, an extreme callousness on the part of the Almighty towards the preservation of species. The earth and its inhabitants has been hit by "natural" environmental disasters so many times, how can you argue that the particular state that humans have found it in for the last 50,000 years or so is the "ideal" state that has to be preserved? Indeed, the environment has even changed a lot (without human intervention) over that period that humans have been around to know it.

A corollary to this assumption is that, if only we would leave it alone, all of nature would be fine. At its most extreme, some environmentalists love trees and animals so much they would prefer to see humankind fizzle out so that Mother Nature could do its own thing, as it would until the next asteroid hits the planet and kills hundreds or thousands of its species in one foul swoop.

(I should mention that the only other way of seeing God's hand in the past destruction is to think that it was done to allow humans to evolve. Guess I have to grant that it is possible, but only in the same way I have to grant that full blown creationism, including the making of those decoy fossils in the earth to allow the devil to tempt us into believing evolution, is also possible. In other words, it's possible, but exceedingly unlikely, that God would push asteroids into the earth as a way of preparing it for humans. Even if he did, he clearly hasn't bothered to prevent other natural disasters from killing humans since we arrived on the scene, which seems a bit mean.)

In short, I believe that the only really credible way of viewing nature for the modern person is (if Christian) to assume that God does not interfere, or if he does, it has become all but impossible to discern when or how. (An exception for the resurrection has to be allowed.) For the modern atheist, the logical view is the environment is ever changing and "nature" can't be trusted to ensure our well being.

So how can anyone come up with a convincing practical theology of environmentalism? God must want us to eat some living things, and Jesus seemed pretty keen on sheep and feasts too. So, his rule can't be all "hands off".

Where are the limits of interference in God's book? I don't believe there are any.

As I said before, not everything idea life has to be based on your religion, and it is perfectly acceptable to argue certain environmental matters on aesthetics alone. There are also pragmatic reasons for preserving species (the widest of which is probably not to destroy any species because you can never quite tell in what way it may become useful in future.) But working out what God today ordains you can eat or not eat, let die out or preserve is impossible. Does God want us to preserve all deadly viruses and parasites?

So let's leave it as a secular issue. And be skeptical of environmentalism in its semi-religious aspects, because at its core, it has an idealizedd view of nature that does not bear scrutiny. It appeals because the aesthetics of nature make everyone feel that more of "untouched" nature would have to be good, but plays scant regard to the practicalities of humans needing shelter, food and "things". It is also easy to love a tree; they rarely hurt you, and when they do it is really your fault for standing too close anyway.

For a Christian church to want to identify itself with such a movement is therefore missing the main point of Christianity, which is all about the eternal salvation of humans and relationships between humans. Encouraging church goers to become highly involved in environmentalism would be making the same mistake as encouraging them to spend all their time on social justice issues: it makes membership of the church more dispensable because secular humanists can be just as devoted (often more devoted) to such causes as church goers. It would, despite the belief that it makes the church more "relevant" to modern people, have precisely the opposite effect.

So give up on this stuff, Uniting Church. It will only hasten your demise.

Telegraph | News | Robert Wise

Telegraph | News | Robert Wise

Film director Robert Wise, most notable for the Day the Earth Stood Still, and the Sound of Music, died this week. Some stuff I didn't know about him is at the Telegraph story above.

I still haven't seen all of the first Star Trek movie, because it was a bit tedious after all, but I will always remember Pauline Kael's wry comment about how odd it is that it ends "not with a bang, but with a bang". (I think I am remembering that correctly!)

Latham warning!!!!

If you are reading this right now (10.35 pm 15 Sept), the ABC seems to now be running the Latham Enough Rope interview. Quick, run to the TV.

Update: I generally share Currency Lad's take on the interview. Despite his childish and churlish nature, I felt a little sorry for him, and some degree of respect for his getting out of a game that he finally realized (only took 25 years or so!) was not for him.

Half pushed into the leadership before he was ready, and then with a sudden illness that surely made him think about how much life he may have left to enjoy with his children (especially given his own father's early demise,) he had strong personal reasons to regret his ascent - as he did, almost immediately.

I sympathized with his comment about how most political relationships are shallow, as (I expect) would many people who have ever had even the slightest involvement with any political party.

To be a successful party politician, an interest in policy formulation and good government unfortunately has to be tied to an acceptance of the frequent pettiness and personality basis of internal party politics. The ALP federally is the current "star" victim of this, but the Liberal Party (especially in my part of the world) also has such longstanding and complex personality-based internal wars that it makes active involvement by someone not interested in such histories and clashes extremely unappealing.

What I am saying is that I understand Latham's cynicism of party politics. Unfortunately, though, people being people, democracies are always going to be like this to one degree or another, and it does seem strange for Latham to take so long to have "had a gutful" as he might say.

That said, he obviously has such a spectacular blind spot for self criticism, and was in other ways so clearly temperamentally unfit for the PM job, he wasn't a bullet dodged by the Australian public; he was more like a nuclear meltdown narrowly averted.

Just another day in Gaza

World News Article | Reuters.co.uk

The above story (about the collapse into semi riot of Palestinan "celebrations" over Israel leaving Gaza) would be funny if it weren't so worrying.

What a mess the Palestinian Authority is in. From the article:

"A speech by an Abbas aide calling for an end to armed chaos was marred by Fatah gunmen parading across the stage and firing assault rifles in the air. This prompted Hamas activists to walk out from what had been billed as a show of Palestinian unity.

The rally ended in disorder when devoutly Muslim refugees dominating the crowd of several thousand stoned the stage in protest at a rap music band's failure to stick to nationalist songs. The performers fled, gunmen firing over their heads."

And more:

"Abbas's biggest challenge in Gaza will be subduing militant factions and motley armed gangs, many of them affiliated with his fractured Fatah movement. They refuse to disarm, but Abbas hopes to co-opt them with security and public service jobs."

They'll probably end up as public servants with guns. That ought to keep the queues at the unemployment office in line.

Old age in Japan

Here's trivia for you: how many centenarians do you think there would be in Japan?

Answer: 25,606. In Australia there seem to be about 3,000 (which is more than I would have expected here too). But Japan has about 6 times Australia's population, so at our rate they would only have 18,000. Obviously they are outdoing us in this area. Personally, I blame John Howard.

Lucky Queen Elizabeth is not their monarch. That would mean signing 70 cards each and every day of the year.

Sad but good news story from Jakarta

From the Jakarta Post, a sad but good story about the aftermath of the Australian Embassy bombing. I will copy it in full because I think the links to JP change very quickly. Sorry about length, but it is a nice story in several ways.

Embassy bombing hero gets promotion

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Although his voice was barely audible, let alone understood, Brig. Asep Wahyudi, 21, one of the victims of the Australian Embassy bombing delighted both reporters and colleagues with his high spirits and persistence to remain in the police force.

"I want to remain a police officer. I don't want anymore bomb attacks to occur in Indonesia, and I hope that we police can capture both Azahari and Nurdin Moh Top as soon as possible," he said referring to the two Malaysian fugitives who are accused of masterminding the Sept. 9, 2004 bombing in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Trembling and shaking, Asep was trying to stand on his feet to receive handshakes from his colleagues, who congratulated him for his promotion from second brigadier to brigadier, a two-rank leap.

Chief of Security for Vital Objects at the Jakarta Police, Sr. Comr. J.R. Hutajulu, said that the police awarded Asep with an extraordinary rank promotion as he had shown loyalty and courage on duty.

"He didn't run away from his duty of guarding a vital object such as an embassy in spite of the bomb explosion. He will stay with us as a police officer," Hutajulu said.

The suicide bombing outside the Australian Embassy killed 10 people and injured hundreds of others.

Asep had served as a police officer for less than a year when he and several other policemen were severely injured in the bombing. He had such a serious head wound that people could see the hole in his head.

With financial help from the Australian Embassy and Aisyah Foundation, Asep was treated for eight months in Singapore. He returned to Indonesia on May 27.

However, he has not fully recovered as he can't stand or walk without assistance.

"With help from the Australian Embassy and Aisyah Foundation, we will send him again for more therapy. We hope he can return to work after the therapy," Hutajulu said.

He said that both Asep's mother and father would accompany Asep to Singapore for his treatment.

Asep's mother Epong Karmina, 55, said that Asep, the fourth of five children, had always wanted to be a police officer.

"We are very proud of him. He has been very brave since childhood. The only thing he wanted was to become a police officer. Now, after the incident, his spirit has grown even stronger," she said.

She said that she, her husband Enang Soma, 60, and Asep's elder sister came all the way from their hometown in Sumedang, West Java, to attend the ceremony.

Asep said that he was not afraid of guarding an embassy or any other place.

"I don't feel the pain anymore. I am ready to be put on duty whenever my superior commands me. I think I can fulfill my duty as usual," said Asep, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Sept. 8.

Janet A strikes again

The Australian: Left unread on the shelf [September 14, 2005]

Hmm, Janet A and Anne C and swimming pool of jelly...

Oh sorry, was I typing then?

Janet's column today (above link) expands upon the general gist of my post here.

Back to reverie...

Hitchens takes on Galloway

George Galloway Is Gruesome, Not Gorgeous - Now, watch me debate him. By Christopher Hitchens

See link above for Hitchen's no holds barred Slate column on Galloway (and Jane Fonda). Better still - Hitchens and he are having a live debate in New York on 14 September! I wouldn't sit too close to the ring, as I expect blood may be spilt. Go Hitchens!

Should I trust my foreign trained hospital doctor?

More bad news from the revived health inquiry in Brisbane:

"PATIENTS at Hervey Bay Hospital were in "very unsafe hands" because of three overseas-trained orthopaedic surgeons, Queensland's medical malpractice inquiry has been told....

Dr North said in a submission that conditions at the hospital orthopaedic unit were third world.

Dr North said there were shortcomings in the trio's clinical assessment, basic communications with staff and patients and surgical skills.

"A summary of the cases noted confirm the investigators knew that the people of the Fraser Coast are in very unsafe hands from the point of view of doctors Naidoo, Sharma and Krishna," Dr North said in his report.

"It appears that there is a third world culture with respect to patient care at Hervey Bay Hospital simply as a consequence of the training of those employed there.

"Under the circumstances prevailing at this hospital patient's safety is at severe risk."

I am pretty sure it was Currency Lad in a comment on on his site (although I cannot find it now) who had a bit of a go at Queensland public hospital patients for being apparently racist by continually asking for second opinions when they have foreign looking hospital doctors. But, in light of evidence like this, can you really blame them?

Oh, how helpful...

Hamas does not want to come to the party :

"HAMAS'S military wing vowed the Islamic group would keep battling Israel after its withdrawal from Gaza and fight any attempt by the Palestinian Authority to take away its guns."

And more helpful comment from the Greek church:

"THE September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States were a lesson from God to the "powerful of the Earth", the head of the Greek Orthodox Church said in a sermon released by his press office today."

A brain the size of a planet...

So it appears that the human brain is likely to keep evolving. Nice to know. Soon we will all look like this:Then this:



Both pics from "This Island Earth" (don't tell the copyright police).

Fun technology site

I stumbled across this site (Technovelgy) for the first time today. It's a bit like the "What's New" section of Popular Science, except it also relates the inventions to similar ideas from science fiction. It's a good fun browse.

While there, check out the highly over-engineered door from Japan that opens just enough to let you through. Still looks pretty cool, though....

Speaking of hi-tech, I didn't know that Honda was planning a fuel cell motorcycle (although whether it will definitely get out of prototype stage seems unclear. If it runs on hydrogen alone, there's a problem in itself.) The story also notes a 50cc hybrid petrol/electric sccoter, which presumably is closer to reality. (It is said to have 1.6 times the fuel economy of Honda's Dio Z4 petrol scooter. As the current Honda Dio 50cc model apparently has fuel economy of about 65km/l, (although at 30kph on the flat), that could mean the hybrid could get over 100km/l. Even at 30kph, that is pretty extraordinary.

The interesting problem with bikes or scooters running on electricity will be how quiet they may be. Look out pedestrians.

No wet hair in my court, please

Further to my criticism of the Beattie government re-appointing Di Fingleton as a magistrate, she is reported today at having a swipe at the government at a really sensible time - her re-appointment to the bench.

' During the swearing in ceremony Ms Fingleton criticised the process which led to her jailing.

"Over the last few years I have experienced total alienation from the legal system in Queensland following what has now been held to have been an unnecessary, self-righteous, wrong-headed and unjust process which saw me stripped of my career, my status and my reputation," she said.'

Oh great. Won't that give prosecutors appearing before her the confidence that she will be objective and fair in any all of the more contentious cases they might bring before her.

To be fair (although that's little fun,) this could be an example of bad reporting, in that she may have given some sort of qualification or re-assurance after this that she could still be completely unbiased to both sides in criminal matters. Who knows. I still think she is demonstrating exactly why I argued she should not be re-appointed.

And finally: are magistrates really worth $200,000 a year? Gees, although you have to put up with being posted to the back of Woop Woop for a few years the first time around, its not that hard to put up with anywhere for a relatively short time out of your career, especially when you have a nice safe job til you want to retire. (I also wonder how many weeks leave they get.)

Update: Yes, there was a fuller report in the Courier Mail this morning, in which Di Fingleton's words of re-assurance are reported.

" Even as she wiped away tears during her swearing-in as magistrate at the new Caloundra Courthouse on the Sunshine Coast, Ms Fingleton still managed a swipe at the legal system which she believed let her down.

"I had always hoped I would make a mark on the law," she said.

"I was not to know it would be so famously, as the recipient of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of the Queensland and Australian legal system."

I still can't get over the irony that the Chief Magistrate didn't find her own defence. (At least one ex judge was reported as thinking the High Court just got it wrong anyway.)

' Ms Fingleton also seized the moment to publicly refute allegations that she was a bully.

"It is important that those parties who will come before me in court and the staff at this courthouse know this . . . anyone coming into my court, or my chambers, will be treated with dignity and courtesy – no moods, no inefficiency, no baggage," she said.

"I will be on time and dry-haired. I will also be, as I have always believed myself to be, competent and fair."'

What's the dry hair bit all about? She made some comment on Enough Rope about her believing other magistrates were not pulling their weight. Was one of them famous for arriving to work with wet hair?

And there will be "no inefficiency" in her court? Sounds like another go at other magistrates.

I am very curious to hear how her court room behaviour develops over the next 6 months.

Lucky Snakes

The above list of good and bad snake omens comes from the Malaysia Star, in its article about the King Cobra that slithered into a temple for a few days and was taken to be a very good sign.
To my western mind, the list of when a snake sighting is good as opposed to bad has its amusements. But first the temple story:

"According to vasthu sastra (the Indian form of feng shui) expert Master Yuvaraj Sowma from Chennai, India, sighting a king cobra is considered a good omen and that explains the throng of visitors to the temple.

He said the appearance of the snake signified that the 123-year-old temple has “matured and is now blessed with enhanced divine powers.”

“It is incorrect to perceive the snake as a sign of luck,” he added

He said, however, that those who prayed and made offerings of milk and eggs before the snake would find obstacles and challenges in life easier to overcome.

One would receive optimum blessings if the king cobra was sighted with its head raised and hood open and if there was direct eye contact, he said.

He believed that the arrival of the snake at the temple was not by chance and should be interpreted as the divine having come “alive” in the form of a snake."

OK....

Anyway, the omens which make least sense to me are these:

"If a snake crosses over an individuals leg it means the person will have longevity"

Well, for many Aussies, that would only apply if your heart doesn't give out from the shock.

Snakes in a poor house is good, but in a wealthy person's house, it means losing money. I wonder what a snake in Margo Kingston's house would currently mean, then. (Sorry, joke mainly for Australian readers!)

Sighting snakes having sex is good (other than in a perverted sort of way, I think that means), as is seeing one when building a house. Does a snake brought to the building site deliberately for sighting count?

Ah, making fun of other cultures omens is a half-guilty pleasure.

Daily Kos readers' media control techniques

Am I the only person to not read Daily Kos much because I just don't understand it? I mean, understand its politics, but its site design is just confusing isn't it?

Anyway, the political techniques of Daily Kos readers are far from subtle, as this post's suggestion shows:

'DKos logs almost a million hits a day now. We're the largest blog on planet earth. Over the past few months you may have noticed that stories which appear here and elsewhere first, show up on the cable networks shortly thereafter. No doubt, the media is paying attention to US and the reality based community in general. We are the growth, and thus we are the market share of desire to court. WE DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE THIS SHIT ANY LONGER.

I just sent this e-mail to Hardball because I was disgusted when Chris Matthew's allowed Bernard Kerik to lie on his program without presenting a rebuttal or the simple facts on record:

This is offered as a fair heads up so that you can correct yourselves. Most of the DKos readers like Hardball, we're a huge component of your viewership. But if you keep having liars like Kerik or anyone else on trying to shift the blame for Homeland Security to the goddamn local mayor, without rebuttal or the actual facts available and promptly presented, I and several others will feature your top sponsors by name and e-mail addresses on the biggest blog on earth and recommend to my fellow million plus readers and members that they boycott your program and sponsors for one week, and send your sponsors personal e-mails explaining why they're doing it.

This isn't politic guys, this is fucking survival. We can't afford to let these clowns off the hook to screw up again. Am I getting through?"

So, if a current affairs problem has an interview which doesn't go according to DKos' liking, they can expect their advertisers to hear the wrath of DKos? Why don't they just go the whole hog and demand editorial control, or a DKos censor sitting in the control room ready to pull the plug when it starts going the "wrong" direction?

I guess so many Kos readers and contributions are paranoid and (at least) half deranged that they don't recognize their own totalitarian leanings. One can only hope they gradually grow out of it, because maturity and any sense of generosity of spirit, or self criticism, are usually the last things evident on the site.

No wonder parasites have a bad name

Found via Slate, this story in the New York Times about a parasite that eats out grasshoppers, then for a finale injects a mind contolling protein into their little brain that gives them the urge to jump into water and drown, just so the worm can escape into the habitat it needs at that time to reproduce. Pictures of the worm are included.

I certainly hope that evolution is not working towards making smarter parasites. It's enough that maybe that cat borne one might be making humans less risk adverse, without worrying about ones in future that might give people the urge to try to swim to New Zealand or some such.

Is there any parasite that humans can find likeable?

Gravity sucks

An interesting theory here to help explain dark matter and its strange nature. (Short version: there are an extra 3 dimensions to the universe, of significantly larger size than the multi dimensions that string theory normally suggests, and the way they work alters the effect of gravity over short distances.)

Sounds like a neat solution, but the article doesn't mention how you can test it.

Straight to DVD?

The incoming new head of Disney is quoted as suggesting that it may be better for studios to shorten the window between cinema release and DVD release, and that it is not "out of the question that a DVD can be released, in effect, in the same window as a theatrical release.".

Seems very hard to believe that this can in any way offset the drop off in cinema attendance. All it means, I guess, is that the studios get their DVD money faster. But if cinema attendance still drops, it can't be good for the industry overall, can it?

By the way, I feel a bit shallow posting on this topic while still in the shadow of New Orleans.

Saturday Night Live - recommended sketch

SNL Transcripts: Kate Winslet: 10/30/04: NBC Special Report

Saturday Night Live runs in Australia about 6 - 9 months late on the Comedy Channel, and while its quality is highly variable, the sketch that played recently and linked to above (transcript only) was very funny and surprisingly liberal.

It won't read as good as it played on TV, but it's still good.

Update: I suppose I should give readers an idea of what it is about. It's a pretend bin Laden tape in which he talks about the choices in last year's Presidential elections. Michael Moore gets a mention too!

Lesbian Wars

From the SMH today, a story about the interesting legal problems when lesbian "parents" break up. (We are talking donor semen for the necessary biological trick here.)

I am curious to see future long term research on how successful such relationships are. I suspect, but could be proven wrong, that relationship break-up will run at a higher rate than for hetero couples, even though that is appalling enough in its own right.

Can't gay couples at least have the good grace to leave nature alone when it comes to the question of whether it is possible for them to have a child? (Hey I did warn you at the top it is a conservative blog...)

New Orleans, anti-Bush etc

Time to post on the appalling tragedy in New Orleans.

What seems surprising is how slowly the details of the destruction have come in, especially considering it's the First World. Images and detail of the asian tsunami destruction seemed to arrive more quickly. But perhaps it is just that the flood in New Orleans is so long lasting (and started in the midst of wild weather), that there were few people willing or able to record it and get the image to a news service. The impression now is of an immense area devastated, but each night the details just get worse and worse.

As to the "politics" of the event, I knew for sure that one of the centres for Bush blaming for this would be Salon.com. It's wildly one sided (and rampantly anti-Bush), and frankly its rants have long ago become tiresome to read. Having said that, it sometimes has stuff of interest in some quirky columns. (I am surprised too that it seems to attract little attention in the world of right wing blogging.)

As predicted Salon carries several New Orleans articles with anti-Bush headings, even if within the body of one article (with a link from the main page headed "War effort diverted funding") there actually is some balance:

"It is too early to tell, however, whether the additional funding would have prevented the levee breaches and overruns that have flooded New Orleans. Scientists, journalists and public officials have been warning for decades that New Orleans could not withstand a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Even SELA, which was started in the mid-1990s after flooding caused billions in damage, was designed to protect against smaller storms, though planners said it would reduce damages of "larger events."....

According to Michael Zumstein, a Corps official working to drain New Orleans, both of the major levee breaches in New Orleans were caused by more water than the Corps' current plans, even if funded, could handle. "It's just the law of physics, that's all," he said, noting that the system was designed to withhold a slow-moving Category 2 or a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it hit land Monday morning. He said an unexpected break at the 17th Street Canal occurred 700 feet south of a bridge where the Corps recently completed a troubled construction project.

Flooding also occurred on the east side of New Orleans, in the St. Bernard Parish, an area that environmentalists have long warned would be susceptible to flooding because of a poorly designed canal built in the 1960s that joins the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Since 1998, local politicians have been demanding that the so-called Mississippi River Gulf Outlet be closed, in part because it was allowing saltwater to destroy marshland, increasing the danger of a storm surge. Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations have been slow to respond to those demands, and earlier this week, the storm surge topped levees, flooding the parish, said Zumstein." (Emphasis mine)

Believe me, if something in Salon is even vaguely suggesting that maybe Bush isn't entirely to blame, you have to believe it.

The other point of interest goes to the question - why did the city seem to be so unprepared for emergency evacuation in the event of a levee break? Another article in Salon looks at this briefly too, but doesn't really answer it. (Briefly, a plan did exist, but just seemed to be hopelessly inadequate.)

Meanwhile, it's good to see Tim Blair countering the "it's all global warming's fault" line so quickly.

UPDATE: more reasons given for not blaming Bush and the Feds (well, not entirely anyway) from an unexpected source - the New York Times! One of the crucial points is this:

"While some in New Orleans fault FEMA - Terry Ebbert, homeland security director for New Orleans, called it a "hamstrung" bureaucracy - others say any blame should be more widely spread. Local, state and federal officials, for example, have cooperated on disaster planning. In 2000, they studied the impact of a fictional "Hurricane Zebra"; last year they drilled with "Hurricane Pam."

Neither exercise expected the levees to fail. In an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America," President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." He added, "Now we're having to deal with it, and will."

And:

"Army Corps personnel, in charge of maintaining the levees in New Orleans, started to secure the locks, floodgates and other equipment, said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management at the Army Corps of Engineers. "We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," he said. "We never did think they would actually be breached." The uncertainty of the storm's course affected Pentagon planning."

UPDATE 2:

An extremely detailed post on this is at Michelle Malkin (which I found via Powerline). It is a must read.

Queensland, nice place to live, but...

Time for more teeth grinding over the woeful things that happen in the Queensland legal system.

The Dr Patel inquiry is all up in the air because a couple of the bureaucrats didn't like being questioned in a slightly sarcastic and rude sounding fashion. Poor boys.

As the News Ltd story says: "Justice Moynihan stressed in his written judgment that it was not important whether Mr Morris was biased, only whether a "fair minded" observer would perceive him to be so."

And strangely, Premier Pete says he won't appeal. (Given the number of times controversial decisions in Queensland courts are overturned on appeal, I would have thought it might be worth a shot!)

I can appreciate that the law has to be based on appearances here, since you can hardly just go and ask the commissioner himself whether he is "really" biased. However, it seems unsurprising that a commissioner in an enquiry like this, where he has statements of most (or all?) witnesses before they go in the box, and has a truth seeking mission that is completely different from what court trials are about, can give an appearance of bias if he questions a witness aggressively.

As it happens, I think Tony Morris was putting on too much "showmanship", and a part of me is a little happy to see him rebuked. However, overall his behaviour did have a positive effect on the victims who finally felt that they were receiving a very public, and very sympathetic, hearing. I also expect that the two bureaucrats who didn't like his style will ultimately gain nothing from this result. I cannot see that the facts against them can be read by anyone in a substantially different fashion.

So, despite misgivings about the Morris style, the judge hasn't done anyone any favours in this whole exercise. There was certainly room to make the decision the other way, and that's what he should've done.

And then there is the Di Fingleton case. She gets substantial compensation and a magistrate's job back. In any earlier post, I argued that having someone on the bench who has been in jail is not a good idea. Lots of room for perceived bias there (probably against sending convicted persons into jail. Or maybe she will be too keen to send some in, just to show she is not biased.) Not to mention that she will presumably be having magistrates conferences where the other magistrates, who were glad to see the back of her, will also be in attendance. A few post-conference drinks, and we could have something that will make the Brogden affair look trivial!

This is a bad mistake. Surely they could have come up with some other job for her. But then again, she admits to being combative and aggressive in style, and maybe now that her former champion Matt Foley is out of the government, no one else in the government was willing to put their hand up to take her.

The Beattie government is on a downwards spiral here. It's just a pity it is so far from an election.

All John Howard's fault: Part 1545

An opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning has author Mark Mordue (who feels sorry for John Brogden) concluding as follows:

"In some strange and ironic way I get the feeling Brogden's self-annihilating plummet is bound up in the culture John Howard has forged, a new 1950s mentality in which all our thoughts and actions are strictly defined in black and white; where it is too easy to say who is good and bad, who is right and who is wrong."

Wow. So even though the 1950's was a time when, without question, Brogden's drunken behaviour would never have been reported, and even if reported would not (in pre-feminist times) have had all of the "sexual harassment" connotations that it has today, a commentator can still find a way to link it to Howard's alleged record of having "taken us back to the 1950's."

What absurdity.

Cranky, hungry rodents

Most people have probably heard that deliberately underfeeding mice and other animals can have a dramatic effect on increasing their life span. Some people have been known to try it too. Problem is, according to this story, it seems it doesn't work to any very significant degree for human, 'cos we aren't rodents. To quote:

"Scientists have known for six decades that cutting the caloric intake of rodents by 40 percent or 50 percent results in dramatically longer lives for them.

"You can practically double their life span," Phelan said. "The same result has been found in fish, spiders and many other species. If it works for them, some thought, it should work for us; I'm here to tell you it doesn't." "

But for humans:

"Their mathematical model shows that people who consume the most calories have a shorter life span, and that if people severely restrict their calories over their lifetimes, their life span increases by between 3 percent and 7 percent -- far less than the 20-plus years some have hoped could be achieved by drastic caloric restriction. He considers the 3 percent figure more likely than the 7 percent."

What's more, just because a rodent lives longer doesn't necessarily mean they're enjoying it:

"The rodents placed on severely restricted diets bit people who tried to hold them, and had an unpleasant demeanor, unlike the more docile animals given more "normal" amounts of food, Phelan said."

And why does it work well for rodents but not humans?

""When you restrict the caloric intake of rodents, the first thing they do is shut off their reproductive system," said Phelan, citing a finding from his dissertation. A normal rodent reaches maturity at one month of age, and begins reproducing its body weight in offspring every month and a half. If humans shut off reproduction by severely limiting calories, "our reduction in wear and tear on the body is minimal," he said."

Makes sense.

I will go enjoy my moderately sized dinner tonight, and I probably won't feel like biting anyone either.

More news from North Korea

Great committee names come of looney socialist totalitarianism and its supporters. This from the North Korea news service:

"Marwan Sudah, chairman of the Arab Solidarity Committee for Supporting the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front and the Struggle of the South Korean People, released a statement on Aug. 14 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation. He recalled that the U.S. imperialists have so far imposed unbearable sufferings and misfortunes on the south Korean people by converting south Korea into their colony and military base."


And in other news on the site, youth day was celebrated in style:

"Evening galas of youth and students were held in different parts of the country on Aug. 28 in celebration of the Youth Day. The evening galas began as the song "Waltz of Youth Day" resounded forth. Youth and students in Pyongyang danced to the tune of "Dear Name," "Pride of Youth," "Girl on a Galloping Steed," "Let's Meet on the Front" and other songs"


"Let's meet on the Front" is a song to celebrate youth day? Wish I knew the lyrics...

Janet on mock outrage

Janet Albrechtsen in the Australian today is spot on in her comments on the John Brogden incident.

Of course, it is fair enough for Janet to compare the reaction to Brogden's insult to the non reaction given to Latham calling her (Janet) a "skanky ho". As Janet says:

"Call me precious but an insult that means "smelly whore" seems just a tad personal and demeaning. Back then feminists, such as Anne Summers, were silent. But yesterday she was waving her metaphorical finger: "It's good to see that racist remarks attract such swift and unanimous condemnation ... but let's hope we can be equally outspoken against sexist comments and behaviour." Anne, you forgot to be equally outspoken a few years ago when sexism was aimed at your opponents."

And on the Labor party reaction generally:

"The mock outrage from Labor types over the past few days might be an easy look but it's not a convincing one. Their commitment to civility arises just long enough for them to confect outrage for political purposes. That makes them not merely hypocrites, but contributors to the lowering of standards."

Also, there's nothing like a suicide attempt to make critics go a bit sheepish. Carr is reported as saying before the resignation:

"I just think this guy's got to be evacuated from the Liberal Party leadership by close of business today," Mr Carr told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"I think that his apology is entirely unacceptable to Helena and that is the greatest insult not only to her but of every woman of Asian background." "

Mr Carr was sounding much gentler about it this morning on Radio National (along the lines of everyone makes a mistake, but he has a good future in politics etc) but I can't find a transcript yet.

UPDATE

Here's Carr from the Sydney Morning Herald today:

"Mr Carr said he and his wife were willing to forgive Mr Brogden for describing Malaysian-born Mrs Carr as a "mail-order bride".

The comment about Mrs Carr, and revelations about Mr Brogden's behaviour towards two women journalists, led to his resignation on Monday.

Mr Carr said Mr Brogden still had a possible future in politics and as a family man.

"We're a forgiving society," he told reporters.

"Bob and Helena Carr forgive what was said about Helena. Helena wants me to say that.

"Let's get on with it, let him rebuild his life, he's got a big role as a citizen and as a father and husband."

Mr Carr said he did not regret his refusal earlier in the week to forgive Mr Brogden for his comments about Mrs Carr.
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"I'd be hypocritical if I didn't say I was very, very angry about what was said," he said"

Huey Dewey & ...Gooey

Woman Helps Ill Duck, but State Seizes It

I missed the above duck story with a happy ending (more or less) that started a couple of weeks ago. (Short version: woman nurses hurt wild duckling back to health. State officials come to sieze it, since people aren't supposed to keep wild ducks. State relents and Gooey the duck is back home. Until he decides to leave.)

I like this part from the Yahoo link above:

"Last Friday, two state Fish and Wildlife agents showed up at Northwest Territorial Mint asking for Erdmann, who's a manager at the company.

Kristin Donovan, assistant to the company president, said she heard "a very loud, very booming, very aggressive-type voice."

"He said, 'Give me the duck.' I heard a pause, then, 'If you don't give me the duck, I'm going to arrest you.'"

When Erdmann refused to hand Gooey over, she said the officers became more stern. One of them showed her his handcuffs. As she cradled Gooey in her arms, the other one lunged at her and grabbed the duck, striking Erdmann on the chest, she said."


The Seattle Times story (see second link above) has a pic of Gooey too. He (or she?)is a fine looking duck.

Women in Pain

news @ nature.com�-�Surging hormones blamed for pain�-�Study of sex-change patients reveals role of oestrogen.

The link above is to a story about how it seems that women experience more pain than men because of oestrogen. It notes that men taking female hormones (for sex change purposes) often start to experience chronic pain. (I wonder if Zoe Brain has thought about this?)

Actually, the whole article surprises me a bit because I had not realised that women "have long been known to experience more pain than men." Well, I suppose it was obvious that they have more painful events (like childbirth and, for many, monthly period pain,) but I didn't realise that apart from that they generally have more pain, as the article suggests. So the old excuse of "not tonight dear I have a headache" is accurate after all?

The article notes that it may help women with chronic pain to give them testosterone, but "giving testosterone to women is more complicated than giving it to men." Yeah I guess growing a beard and getting a deep voice is a pretty big price to pay for pain relief...

Hitchens -V- Jon Stewart

Everyone who reads around right wing blogs would know by now of Christopher Hitchens good Weekly Standard article on the Iraq war.

Maybe some have missed his appearance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show. You can watch it here.

What is disturbing about it is the rabid enthusiasm of the Daily Show audience for every pearl of wisdom that comes from Stewart's mouth. I think I have read that this show is very influential with the college age crowd in the States. And to be honest, a lot of the writing is pretty sharp and funny. But it is so unrelenting liberal it is a worry.

Hitchens barely gets to fit a word in between Stewart's rants, but his audience doesn't care.

If you want to be more depressed, go to this liberal site (Crooks & Liars) and read the comments on the interview. It has obviously become fashionable amongst liberals to dismiss rational argument by continually alleging the writer is an alcoholic. If Hitchens is technically an alcoholic, he certainly must be a very "high functioning" one, as his output in various magazines and books is pretty phenomenal.

Dangerous "research"

Report Finds Fetuses Feel Pain Later Than Thought - New York Times

The doctors who wrote this report deserve some stick, I think.

I would have thought that the obvious way to look at it is whether a premature baby under 29 weeks, of which there is plentiful experience, appears to experience pain. Like by crying. And a doctor sceptical of this research agrees (to quote from the above New York Times article):

"Not all physicians agree. Dr. K.S. Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said: "There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that pain occurs in the fetus."

For example, he said, tiny premature babies, as young as 23 or 24 weeks, cry when their heels are stuck for blood tests and quickly become conditioned to cry whenever anyone comes near their feet."In the first trimester there is very likely no pain perception," Dr. Anand said. "By the second trimester, all bets are off and I would argue that in the absence of absolute proof we should give the fetus the benefit of the doubt if we are going to call ourselves compassionate and humane physicians." But despite his view, Dr. Anand did not recommend trying to anesthetize fetuses during abortions. "It is premature at this point to say we should do this or not do it," he said. "As a scientist, I'm not sure we have the best methods."

Dr. Anand said he did not oppose abortion, but had testified that fetuses feel pain at hearings called by legislators seeking to ban late-term abortions."

As far as I am concerned, that is game set & match.

The argument against this would have to say, I suppose, that the crying is a reflex which does not reflect true processing of pain in the undeveloped brain. But this is running not a million miles from the Peter Singer argument that you can ethically treat even full term babies as less than fully "human" because they don't have the same self awareness that even a smart animal has. (I don't think I am misrepresenting his position here.)

Nope. If a human body cries when stuck, you gotta deem it to be human and ethically assume that causing the crying is a bad thing.

Feeling unloved..or at least unread

Forgive a bit of self indulgence, but I am feeling worse about blogging since I put on the new site meter and realised how many "hits" to my site are complete accidents. (And probably half of my 8 or so a day hits are me looking at my site to link to other blogs on my roll.) It is interesting, though, how high on the google search results a blog can come for certain word combinations. I suppose I am creating a bit of cyberspace opinion and information that will be around and coming up on search results for a long time...

Anyway, there seem to be precious few readers who visit this site with much regularity. And no one leaves comments (except for Zoe Brain once, I think) He (when still a he) also gave my blog a recommendation, but hasn't added a link as far as I can see. I think about 4 or 5 blogs have linked to me, the most popular of which would be the widely read and well written Currency Lad. I have emailed Tim Blair a couple of times on stories or inviting him to look here, but no answer.

Seems small "reward" for the number of times I post here. (Not a huge number of posts, but pretty regular, and causing my work efficiency to suffer no end.)

Oh well, I enjoy the process of posting stuff that interests me for all the world to see. But I feel like how Barbra Striesand must have felt before she won an Oscar. (That's a line I never thought I would use.) Namely, a need for a little bit of acknowledgement from someone that they like me (well, my blog.)

Hmm, this leads me to look at Barbra's official website. Could be awful.....Yes it is!

Who would have guessed that she blogs on politics so much? Her most recent words of wisdom:

" August 6, 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima. The Atomic Bomb, which decimated the Japanese city and its people, was never used in combat again. This day is also the anniversary of another "bomb" that was dropped 4 years ago, this time into the lap of President Bush in the form of a memo titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US.' While on yet another extended vacation at his Crawford ranch, the President chose to neglect his duties as Commander in Chief by refusing to act decisively and immediately on this impending threat, leading to the worst terrorist attack in American history. These anniversaries remind us to learn from our past actions in order to ensure a safer more secure future."

(Now back to me, me, me. Comments - or even one comment - to cheer me up welcome, but I shouldn't expect any..)

Downsides of cycling

Research On Bicycle Saddles And Sexual Health Comes Of Age

See above link for recent article about cycling induced erectile dysfunction. The reason:

"the high pressures in the perineum while straddling a saddle compress and temporarily occlude penile blood flow. They also hypothesized that the lining vessels of the compressed arteries become damaged, thus leading to potential permanent artery blockage.

However, not all men who ride bicycles will develop erectile dysfunction. One past study suggested that sexual health consequences adversely affect 5% of riders (based on survey data that would therefore include 1,000,000 riding men with ED). "

And this line I like:

"Schrader further concluded that "the health benefits from having unrestricted vascular flow to and from the penis are self-evident."

Indeed!

Unhappy in Canada too

I posted twice recently on the unhappy and deplorable state of remote aboriginal communities in Australia. Mark Steyn has here a bit about the equivalent problems in Canada. He writes:

"About a decade ago Canadians switched on their televisions and were confronted by '‘shocking'’ images of the town'’s populace passing the day snorting drugs, glue, petrol and pretty much anything else to hand.

So, as any impeccably progressive soft-lefties would, Her Majesty'’s Government in Ottawa decided to build the Mushuau a new town a few miles inland a— state of the art, money no object, new homes, new heating systems, new schoolhouse, new computers, plus new more culturally respectful town name (Natuashish)....

Two years after the new town opened, the former Mushuau chief and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police both agreed that there were more drugs, alcoholism, gas-sniffing etc., than ever before. Also higher suicide rates."

Sound familiar?

"The net result of 40 years of a '‘caring'’ policy intended to maintain communities in their traditional '‘culture'’ is that Canadian natives now have tuberculosis, diabetes, heart disease and brain damage at levels accelerating further and further away from those in society at large, not to mention lower life-expectancy, higher infant mortality, and endemic suicide."

Very familiar.

Mark's column then diverts into a broad ranging swing at multiculturalism, but his key point on the problem of indigineous cultures being "maintained" in countries like Australia and Canada is summed up as follows:

"By pretending that all cultures are equal, multiculturalism doesn'’t '‘preserve'’ traditional cultures so much as sustain them in an artificial state that ensures they a’ll develop bizarre pathologies and mutate into some freakish hybrid of the worst of both worlds."

I think he might be playing a bit loosely with the term "culture" in this column.

I guess I would be more inclined to say that it is not that all aspects of aboriginal culture are undeserving of existence (although certainly parts of it should be done away with); it's just that it is harmful to encourage the belief that such remote communities with no real integration with the actual economy of the country can be socially successful. If that means that some aspects of their "culture" are lost, well that is the cost of the greater good known as "being alive and moderately healthy." Anyway, it is not as if there is much culture being preserved by brain damaged petrol sniffing youth.

What should the government actually do? Well, the fundamental thing, I think, has to be to have policies that discourage remote communities with no prospect of economic integration from continuing to exist. Primarily, this would have to be by encouraging the young to get out of there. If the adults want to stay in their train wreck of a community, so be it, although there may be forms of incentive to re-locate that would work. But the young should definitely be taught that there is a better future for them somewhere else.

Giant green lizards take over Florida

According to this story, big green iguanas are no longer considered a novelty by folks in Florida.

In Brisbane, gray lizards known as water dragons hang around many residential areas which are near creeks or watery spots, and they can easily reach 2 (or maybe a bit more)feet long. However, the article about iguanas talks of them being up to 6.5 feet long! Sorta like having goannas in your backyard. No wonder they aren't so popular.

Oh, and personally I blame John Howard.

Whining lefties..

Today in The Age, staff writer Martin Flanagan writes the type of column I am thoroughly sick of reading over the last decade - a stupid whinge about how the general public of Australia has supposedly been lulled into selfish indifference by our bad, bad Prime Minister.

This way of thinking is what is holding Labor back from winning elections at the Federal level. They cling to the idea that it is the Left that is naturally morally superior in its attitude to everything from aboriginal issues to the environment, migration etc. Part of the whinge is also that there are no "big ideas" about Australia's future under Howard, which of course assumes that fuzzy "big ideas" are important in the first place. That we have become culturally boring is another line commonly run. (Jonathon Biggins keeps writing articles whining about this in the Sydney Morning Herald.) Of course, our great selfishness under Howard is a common theme in Margo's Webdiary.

Martin writes:

"Sometimes, working in the media in this country at this time, you sense this is a culture in free-fall, that it no longer knows exactly what it believes, or indeed if it believes in anything beyond self-interest, Anzac Day and the fortunes of our various sports teams - these, incidentally, being the interests of the Prime Minister who, as our politics become more presidential, becomes increasingly emblematic of us. Overlooked in this process are such aspects of his past as zero active interest in the environment, repeated flirtations with the politics of race and a farcical victory in the last election that he chose to fight on interest rates."

Giving the game away a bit by calling it a "farcical victory" aren't you Martin.

And he ends with:

"Let's fire up, as we say in sport. Let's have a real debate. Let's revive the idea of Australia."

Oh dear. I can see how useful that suggestion is going to be.

I can save Martin, Jonathon, Margo and their ilk many hours of writing by teaching them to say this: "Jeez I hate John Howard and it pisses me off that people keep voting for him." That's all you are saying guys, over and over and over again.

What's more, the majority have not become morally depraved or uninterested in serious issues. They just don't agree with your take on them. That's all.

And to the extent that the culture might be suffering, to large degree it's because it is generally comprised of dills like you whose material either has the text or subtext that most Australians are bad or dumb because they tolerate this government.

As to "big ideas" how about this one: that a government's job is to defend the country and its inhabitants, manage an economy to be as robust as possible in the circumstances, and to legislate to otherwise protect and provide a reasonable degree of services that governments are best at providing for the general population. (Took me about 2 minutes reflection to come up with that.) How in practice those things are done is a legitmate area of debate. But to suggest that we are bereft of inspiration unless we have sat around and come up with some "mission statement" for the nation reeks of 1980's management theory and is well past its use by date.

Anyone out there into moral philosophy?

Amazon.com: Books: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

Just in case I have readers who think I post too often about space stuff, I will divert into philosophy for a minute.

The above link (perhaps obviously) is to the Amazon page for a 1980's book "After Virtue" by Alasdair MacIntyre, and I have stumbled across it before. I am not familiar with MacIntyre, but the reviews make it sound of great potential interest to me. This is the first reader review (sorry it is lengthy, but it is easy to follow, and even the non-philosophically inclined reader might see the relevance of it to current left/right debate about the Iraq war):

"After Virtue is a delightful book which presents the contemporary problem of moral philosophy today. MacIntyre says that there is an interminability of moral debate today. No consensus solution to the variety of moral issues such as abortion and war will present itself because proponents of both sides of the arguments in these two issues argue from a different set of premises from a different tradition of moral philosophy. You have Thomistic ideals of the value of life and justice against Rousseauist ideals of individuality, for example, in life issues. Can any of the enlightenment moral philosophies really help us make rational, clear decisions about the morality of a particular decision? MacIntyre investigates the moral philosophies of Kant, Hume, & Kierkegard, showing how each of them miserably fail as possible moral systems. Utilitarianism, pragmatism, and emotivism are also wonderfully skewered.

With what are we left? It seems as if after the failure of these systems we are left with the Nietzschean amorality of total chaotic relativism. MacIntyre understands the enigma of Nietzsche's ideas and shows how his attacks toppled the pompous, arrogant ideals of the Enlightenment. But Nietzsche's system seems impossible from a human standpoint, since, for example, we are left with the unsettling discovery that events such as the Holocaust are not really "wrong" in any objective sense. MacIntyre interjects that there is another alternative: go back to the source of the Enlightenment project. Sometime around then a bald decision was made philosophically to abandon the Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics that had supported Western thought for the previous 2000 years whether in the purest Aristotelian form or rather in highly developed Thomistic incarnations such as that which the Catholic Church held (and still does) and similar ones influences by Islamic and Jewish philosophers during the middle ages. Can this form of moral philosophy withstand criticism and ultimately rise as a viable alternative to Nietzsche? MacIntyre thinks so, and he spends a large amount of time laying the groundwork for a revived account of such a system. When he poses the question, Nietzsche or Aristotle, finally I at least think that he has made a compelling argument in favor of Aristotle (and Aquinas as some of his later work will evolve towards)."

Given my tiny readership here, I am unlikely to get a response. But: does anyone know about this book or author?

More on space radiation

I found a good detailed article on possible methods for shielding spacecraft from cosmic radiation. Unfortunately, there is no clear practical solution. The simplest idea is to be in the middle of a really big ship. But that doesn't help you while you are on Mars, say. Here's another, shorter, article that indicates this is beleived by some to be a major reason against sending humans to Mars (at least with current technology, I guess.)

"Active" shields have a lot of practical problems.

Although I find this area depressing (because it is another blow to easy exploration of space by humans) it does strike me a little as being similar to the challenges facing early maritime exploration of the earth. For example, the navigation problem of accurately determining longitude, solved by inventing an accurate transportable clock. Or perhaps there is more similarity with scurvy, suffered by sailors until they realised taking citrus juice would prevent it.

Anyway, although there are already engineers and scientists thinking deeply about it, I wonder whether this is another case (like the longitude problem) where the government ought to offer a reward for a good solution. It just seems possible to me that some sort of "new" idea for active shielding might be being overlooked.

Any wonder Beattie lost two seats?

With his government's stunning incompetence in handling its public health system crisis being exemplified by stories like this one (in the Courier Mail on the election day,) it would have been all but inconceivable for (Queensland Premier) Peter Beattie to have retained the two seats up for by-elections yesterday.

Short version of the linked story for those who can't be bothered clicking: just as in the case of Dr Patel (the enthusiatic but untalented and rather deadly surgeon who skipped town as soon as his case came to light), the apparently fake psychiatrist from Russia that Queensland Health employed for Townsville hospital who is now suspected of being a paedophile (practiced not just in Russia but perhaps also here) has fled the country. Unlikely to be seen again.

A new type of space suit at last?

news @ nature.com�-�An outfit suitable for Mars�-�Slimmer space suits on the rack for astronauts.

Readers with a science/ science fiction interest will know that the type of space suit discussed in the above link has been a feature of future technology used by some sci fi authors since the 1970's. (Jerry Pournelle springs to mind, but I am sure there are others.) Anyway, its good to see that it is still under active research, and actually looks a goer.

Sounds very hard to get into though. I also wonder about women's breasts getting painfully squashed by these. Any thoughts, Zoe?

Someone finally says it

This opinion piece in the Australian today finally says out loud something so politically incorrect that even the Federal Libs wouldn't say it (yet). Namely, that you really have to question whether remote aboriginal communities are viable.

As Rosemay Neill says:

"A notion of cultural autonomy that discounts the importance of real jobs and formal education simply divorces indigenous communities from mainstream power structures, even as they are flooded with the worst aspects of Western culture, from junk food to drugs."

What a pleasure to read such common sense.

Just last week, Phillip Adams up at Garma was interviewing someone who said that it was obvious from the festival that an active aboriginal culture can save lives (pointing out all the young ones who had evident musical talent at the festival.)

My suspicion is that active culture is still only successful if it results in that particular community being better integrated with the actual economy.

No one would expect success from a new community of (say) a few hundred white folk who had the idea of going to live in a remote and infertile part of Australia so that they could be successful musicians who connect with Gaia (or some such equivalent to aboriginal "connection to the land".) Not unless the said group also had a proper plan as to how they were going to deal with growing food, getting a source of clean water, building and maintaining adequate housing, etc. I suspect that all "hippy" communes (which is the nearest real life example of my theoretical case) which are successful are in fertile areas, grow a substantial part of their own food, and are not hundreds of klicks from the nearest town or hospital.

So why do liberals think that for aborigines culture alone is enough to live on?

Ann Coulter on Maureen Dowd

Ann Coulter, who I don't read regularly but probably should, takes her own swipe at Cindy Sheehan, as well as the Maureen Dowd column which had the much ridiculed line that (quoting Ann, quoting Maureen) : 'it's "inhumane" for Bush not "to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute." '

As Ann says:

"The logical, intellectual and ethical shortcomings of such a statement are staggering. If one dead son means no one can win an argument with you, how about two dead sons? What if the person arguing with you is a mother who also lost a son in Iraq and she's pro-war? Do we decide the winner with a coin toss? Or do we see if there's a woman out there who lost two children in Iraq and see what she thinks about the war? "

But the line I liked most in the column is this:

'Dowd's "absolute" moral authority column demonstrates, once again, what can happen when liberals start tossing around terms they don't understand like "absolute" and "moral."'

I have been meaning to write something at length about my belief that a major problem with current day liberals is their apparent lack of knowledge of some pretty basic moral philosophical concepts. But it will probably have to wait for another day...

Good reading on North Korea

The New Yorker: The Critics: Books

The link is to an excellent book review/essay in the New Yorker on the history and current status of North Korea, with particular reference to the dictatorial Kim family. Highly recommended.

Media Watch on Red Cross canapes

Credit where it is due. The Media Watch story this week on the alleged Red Cross plan to use donations to fund a "series of catered parties for wealthy donors" was well done. The Sydney Morning Herald should be deeply ashamed of this example of tabloid quality journalism, especially because of the problems it could mean for Red Cross fund raising in future.

Hitchens on Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle - What's wrong with her Crawford protest. By Christopher Hitchens

See the link to Hitchen's take on Cindy Sheehan's grandstanding. It is what you would expect (pretty scathing).