A danger sign hard to foresee

It takes courage to say the f-word: failure - Alan Ramsey

Hey, Alan Ramsey did us a favour last weekend by printing something I had missed earlier. Ken Henry (head of Treasury) had this to say at his Press Club lunch during the week:

"The array of financial instruments deployed within the global financial system has become so complex that it defies understanding. It's not just that nobody, no one person, understands the whole system. That would be hardly surprising. What is worrying is the very large number of senior finance sector executives who don't appear to understand the consequences of even their own decisions, of their own actions.

"The second dimension is closely related.

"It has to do with risk, it has to do with uncertainty. Complex financial instruments have been traded globally in ways that were thought to provide a more comfortable sharing of risk across the world. Instead, what they've shared is fear. People now not only don't know who they can trust, they don't even know who they need to be able to trust.

"And the third dimension I want to identify is the role played by regulation and, more broadly, the role played by governance systems. For decades to come, policy makers around the world are going to be asking why those with sufficient authority didn't, at some point, stand above the buzz of the financial markets and declare, in simple language, that all of this simply doesn't make sense."

It's the first bit about the complexity reaching a level that no one can understand that is the most interesting.

I mean, how do you judge exactly when that has happened? Which world famous economist is going to be the first to admit that he can't understand it all?

The future foreseen

One day, when the giant flying saucer arrives, it will beam an announcement to all TVs and radios, informing us that they are from the Pan Galactic Eugenics Society, and the world's smartest human must be delivered for intelligence testing via the most devious, intricate and maddening puzzle that has ever been devised. The fate of the earth will rest in that person's hands.

Inside the saucer, the chosen brainiac with mad scientist hair waits anxiously. "Here" booms the alien voice, "is the test." A curtain starts sliding open silently. "Assemble this!"

Behind the curtain is a digital flat screen TV the size of a house with 50 speaker surround sound system, disc player, three different types of media recorder and cable connection.

This is how the Earth will end.

A short, jumbled note

For a variety of reasons, not the least being the state government's refusal to do anything about daylight saving in Brisbane, so that at this time of year the sun is actually making it all bright and cheery (ha!) by rising at 4.45am, I am not getting enough sleep lately.

Maybe this is why I was having a peculiar dream last night in which I was busy investigating a rice throwing poltergeist which seemed to be connected with some bodies buried under a building, except that when I dug them up they weren't real bodies at all but dummies, which then led me to suspect that some engineers I knew were behind it all, and so on.

Usually, I can work out pretty quickly what it was that I had recently watched or read that caused me to have a jumbled dream, but I can't remember reading anything about poltergeists for quite a while. I suppose I idly think about the personality deficiencies of engineers I have known from time to time, though.

Anyhow, to continue the jumbled theme of this post, I note that time devoted to the internet is actually interfering way too much with my vague attempts to make money lately. I'm going to attempt to insist on limiting posts to the evenings for a while. Maybe this software will help in my task.

Meanwhile, please admire the giant playground robot in the last post, and tell me if you have seen anything better.

Unusual photos of Japan

Here's some of the more unusual photos from my recent Japan trip:

First, the impressive giant playground robot:



I am not sure how many of these may exist in Japan; it looked a little old but not in bad condition. The only semi-equivalent thing I can remember from Australia was a cage like three level rocket ship which used to grace the kids playground at Toombul Shopping Town in the late 60's. This giant robot was in a rather out of the way location in Japan, which I am willing to divulge for the right amount of money to any eccentric reader who wants to use it when videotaping their own fan version of The Wicker Man.

Secondly, breaking my rule that it's too cheap to make fun of foreigners and their English spelling mistakes:



Next, a sign encouraging people to dispose of their cigarette butts carefully, because if you don't, it'll upset the sewer rats (as always,click to enlarge):


Another sign, this one hard to read in full, but it encourages good behaviour on the trains, with some fairly obvious suggestions (which may be paraphrased as "smoke spreads" and "don't sit with your legs too far apart"):


(I have a feeling that I have seen this series of posters blogged about somewhere else some time ago, but haven't gone looking yet.)

Finally, the hungry, hungry fish:


OK, not the funniest photo to finish with, but it's late, alright?

Charles on cars

RealClearPolitics - Articles - A Lemon of a Bailout

Charles Krauthammer looks at the issue of saving the American car industry. All rather relevant to Rudd's plans too.

Unintended consequences

Neb. Parents Rush to Abandon Children - NYTimes.com

Silly legislators.

Urgent therapy needed

Jules Crittenden Why Palin Matters

I don't normally read Andrew Sullivan, but it's hard to avoid dropping in every day or two now to see whether his absolute obsession with crushing any political future for Sarah Palin is continuing.

Indeed it is! (If I am counting correctly, there are 10 separate posts dated 13 Nov referring to Palin in one way or another. Even after his readers have told him he is being obsessive - hence his posts seeking to justify why he is still writing about her.)

Jules Crittenden post about this (see above) it is amusing and to the point.

But it doesn't go far enough. If it's good enough for gays to always be claiming there's a hidden psycho-sexual reason behind things like opposition to gay marriage (you know, it's the repressed homosexuality that leads to homophobia that leads to...etc,) Andrew Sullivan seems to be a much more convincing case for hidden motives for hostility.

Jim Treacher has already gone partly this way in his comment to Crittenden's post: "Sullivan hates her because she’s obviously better at making a man happy than he is."

Possibly, but I think Sullivan has been having recurring dreams in which he's aroused by finding Sarah in his bed, beckoning him. The shame, the shame.

The talented neighbours from hell

Review: The House of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh

Terry Eagleton reviews a new book on the Wittgenstein family. They were brilliant, rich, and absolutely brimming with mental disorders and argument.

In Australian we generally expect renting neighbours to be more noisy and troublesome that owner-occupiers. This clearly did not apply in Austria, at least when it came to this family.

Is it OK to find this section blackly funny (especially the part about Hans' first word)?:

The sons of the household had a distressing habit of doing away with them selves. Handsome, intelligent, homosexual Rudolf strolled into a Berlin bar, dissolved potassium cyanide into his glass of milk and died in agony on the spot. Two years earlier, Hans Karl had disappeared without trace and is thought to have killed himself at sea. He was a shy, ungainly, possibly autistic child with a prodigious gift for maths and music, whose first spoken word was "Oedipus". He, too, was thought to be gay. Kurt seems to have shot himself "without visible reason" while serving as a soldier in the first world war. The philosopher Ludwig claims to have begun thinking about suicide when he was 10 or 11.

Paul, a classmate of Adolf Hitler, became an outstanding concert pianist. Unusually for male members of the family, he was robustly heterosexual. The Wittgenstein ménage was more like a conservatoire than a family home: Brahms, Mahler and Richard Strauss dropped in regularly, while Ravel wrote his "Concerto for the Left Hand" specially for Paul, who had lost an arm in the first world war. Paul thought his brother Ludwig's philosophy was "trash", while Ludwig took a dim view of Paul's musical abilities. The Winter Palace resounded with constant yelling and vicious squabbling.

Only in Japan

Aso's fish slip gives game away | The Japan Times Online

Read the story for an amusing, and particularly Japanese, controversy about their Prime Minister.

Gunfight at the Catallaxy Corral

Obama the rorschach president at catallaxyfiles

Watch the bullets fly in the comments section between CL and Jason.

And further down, JC makes this comment, which sounds about right. It's hard to see why anyone would want to be president this time around, but I guess they didn't realise that 'til they were too far in.

The sad numbers game

Fears over shortage of sperm donors

The article is from The Independent, and is about the shortage of sperm donors in the UK, following changes to the law that gives adult children the right to trace their father.

The figures are surprisingly high:

The doctors said around 4,000 UK patients needed donor sperm each year.

Therefore, a minimum of 500 new donors were needed each year to meet demand, they argued.

Compared to how many abortions per year?: around 194,000.

One donor in Britain is allowed to father 10 children. Sounds high to me, but the doctors say this level is "very, very safe".

Even more surprising, however, is that the Dutch allow up to 25 children from one donor father (and that is in a population of only 16,000,000.) France, by comparison, allows only five, and it would appear that in one State of Australia it is 10.

Meanwhile, one "freelance" idiot in Australia is believed to have fathered 30 children (to lesbian mothers), and mostly in the one city.

I can't quickly find how many sperm donor births there would be overall in Australia, but the total number of "assisted conception" babies is now around 10,000 a year.

And in comparison, the number of babies put up for adoption in Australia last year: about 60. (Remarkably, you will see from page vii of that link that there were only 568 adoptions in total in Australia in 2006-07. Of these, 70% were from overseas.)

No one knows accurately how many abortions there are in Australia each year, but the guesstimate appears to be anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000.

Seems to me that it's about time some effort was put back in to suggesting adoption might be a preferred solution to the wild mismatch of reproductive desires that these figures indicate.

A useful clarification

Uncertain Principles: Many-World vs. Multiverse:

The Many-Worlds Interpretation talks (in its popular formulation) about "alternate worlds" in which particular measurements had different outcomes. It's not quite right to talk about these as separate universes in their own right (really, they're just different parts of the same universal wavefunction), but that's the basic idea-- there is a branch of the wavefunction corresponding to each of the possible outcomes of any particular measurement, and those branches are inaccessible to one another.

Multiverse Cosmology, on the other hand, posits the existence of other "universes" in which the constants of nature have slightly different values. Depending on which flavor of it you're dealing with, these may be completely separate parallel worlds (other Big Bangs leading to other universes) or "bubbles" within a single cosmos, stemming from the same Big Bang.

The comments that follow that post are also of interest.

Probably not a kimchi factory after all

Row over claims of Syrian nuclear find | World news | The Guardian

Unnamed diplomats said on Monday that samples taken by UN inspectors from Kibar in northern Syria contained traces of uranium combined with other elements. The uranium was processed, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.

"It isn't enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing, but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation," said a diplomat with links to the Vienna-based watchdog.

For some reason, the Guardian story does not remind us of the North Korean connection. (Hence the title of this post.)

So that's why the British go there

Dubai hotel issues etiquette guide after sex on the beach scandal -Times Online

Dubai has been attracting a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons lately, and given that the weather is hellishly hot for most the year, and it appears to have no significant natural beauty (sand desert holds no interest for me at least), I am curious as to why people go there.

The above article may explain one reason:

Brunches take place across Dubai every Friday, the first day of the Dubai weekend, and are heavily promoted in Dubai's Time Out and enjoyed to the full by expatriates.

The lavish affairs last from late morning into the early evening when diners can enjoy unlimited food and alcohol for a fixed entry fee.

In the case of the Madinat Jumeirah the charge is £88, which includes bottomless champagne, cocktails and wine between 12:30pm and 4:30pm.

I like one of the comments that follow the story:

Oh dear, - I've been, I've seen and I won't be going back. A nauseating mix of Las Vegas and the 12th Century...

A day late

Truth and the casualties of war - Gerard Henderson - Opinion - smh.com.au

I meant to post this yesterday, but Gerard Henderson's column about the swings in the perception of Australia's role in WW1 seemed pretty good.

He referred to the Four Corners program on Monday evening, most of which I saw. One simple thing I noticed about it was that the historical black and white film looked unusually clear and sharp to my eye: perhaps it had been cleaned up recently with some software?

There was one historian who made comments that I did not agree with, but most of the comments in the show seemed fair enough.

There is so much complexity, ambiguity and revision about World War 1 that it is a topic I have always been reluctant to delve into too deeply. At least things got much, much clearer by the time of World War 2, and having parents involved in that makes it much more directly of interest.

Wind and the grid

If You Love Wind (and Solar)… - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

Here's another post about the problems that the current highly variable output from renewable energy can cause the electricity grid.

The parasite of love

Dopamine is key to a parasite’s ability to unite rat and cat, researcher says

Regular readers may well recall that it's been know for some time that rats infected with toxoplasma gondii lose their fear of the smell of cat urine.

What appears new to the story, however, is that the smell of cats not only doesn't worry them, it:

...also makes them mentally and sexually aroused each time their tiny pink noses detect cat smells. ...

"What this damn parasite knows how to do is make cat urine smell sexy to male rats," Sapolsky said. After being exposed in laboratory tests to different cat scents, infected male rats showed a spike in testosterone levels and their testes became engorged.

Not only that, but female rats find infected male rats pretty sexy too:

....female rats also responded to the change in hormone levels by showing preference toward infected males approximately 95 percent of the time, Sapolsky said, which came as another interesting find.

"One of the rules of evolutionary biology is if you're an animal, you don't want to mate with anyone full of parasites," Sapolsky said. "Somehow that doesn't happen with T. gondii infection."

Well then, maybe we are lucky that toxoplasma gondii didn't work out how to make the evolutionary proto-human males of Africa sexually aroused by lions.

(I can see the basis for some good science fiction in this story too.)

The Doctor Fizzles

I was away when the last episode of the last series of Dr Who screened here, and I finally saw it on tape last night.

I know from LP that it attracted criticism for the perceived anti-feminist way it treated Donna, but really, that was the least of its problems.

The last two episodes were pretty much a complete mess. Russell T Davies had really hit some sort of creative block, I reckon, in trying to wrap it all up. Here are my complaints:

1. it took the usual deus ex machina feature of the show to pretty ridiculous heights. Having a fake regeneration as a link between the last two episodes was a paticularly cynical trick, in my books.

2. the special effects (the 27 planets, the thousands of Daleks) all looked unusually cheesy. (Computer generated effects which mulitply anything too much - be it soldiers, ships, spaceships - just automatically look too fake to my eye.)

3. Rose still had the distracting bizarre thing where she couldn't seem to remember exactly how she used to speak. Her upper and lower teeth at times just seemed weirdly misaligned (or something) in her mouth. I find this all very odd.

4. All of the initial crying and carry on by the Doctor's pals when they saw it was the Daleks who had moved the earth seemed out of character defeatism.

5. The blaring music, which I have noted before is often what sells the excitement in the show, was really so continuous this time that it was annoying.

6. Bringing all the Davies created characters together was a nice idea, but it still did not allow enough time for each of them to impress. The sudden appearance of K9 seemed especially stuck on in a "tick the box" kind of manner.

7. Both Donna and Rose were just getting a bit too soppy about their relationship with the Doctor, if you ask me. For characters that are nearly killed in every episode, can't they take a bit more comfort in a return home and the occasional visit from the Doctor for a cup of tea?

There are probably more points, but that's all I can recall for now.

Uh huh

Steven Weber: Now We Must

Huffington Post is, of course, chock-a-block with excitement over the dawning of New Era of the Obama Messiah-dom. Seemingly, this is a new step in the evolution of humankind, or something:

...Obama will automatically be a good president not because he's the first black man to be elected or because he's a Democrat but because he is an actual, evolved, progressive, intelligent American.

As opposed to that monkey George W, I suppose.

As for Obama's talents:

Along with showcasing his brilliance as a student of history and law, his ability to manage and delegate, his mass appeal and preternatural communicative abilities, his election means that---finally---a national dialogue will begin in earnest. The conversation will be national therapy, with all of the demons bubbling to the surface. And along with racial stereotypes being torn down like dilapidated crack houses, Liberals and Conservatives are being redefined, maps redrawn, hopes fulfilled.

"The Messiah-doctor will see you now, America."

At least one Huffington reader thinks this might be going a little over the top:

I find the messianic undertones or your article a little disturbing.

Huge waste of effort

Canberra calls net filter trial | Australian IT

From the Journal of Pointless Experiments

The challenges of eating right on a limited budget - International Herald Tribune:

The World Bank says nearly a billion people around the world live on a dollar a day, or even less; in the United States, the daily food-stamp allowance is typically just a few dollars per person, while the average American eats $7 worth of food per day...

This fall a couple in Encinitas, California, conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Overnight, their diets changed significantly.

You don't say. What type of person would think such an experiment makes sense?:

...the couple - Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, both high school social studies teachers - bought raw beans, rice, cornmeal and oatmeal in bulk, and made their own bread and tortillas. Fresh fruits and vegetables weren't an option.

Um, no doubt a dollar a day is not a lot of money for anyone in the world. But do a couple of social studies teachers really need to be told that $1 might buy you more in, say, Africa than it will in California? (Or, for that matter, that many of the poor do grow at least some of their own food.)

Who's Obama going to talk to?

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Where now for Palestinian unity?:

The emnity between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah seems yet further entrenched, after Cairo-brokered reconciliation talks between the two groups broke down before they had even officially begun.

The Palestinian national dialogue, due to be held on Monday in the Egyptian capital, was to have been attended by all the major Palestinian political factions....

Hassan Essa, an Egyptian political analyst, academic and former director of the Israeli department within the ministry of foreign affairs, says the chances of ever brokering a settlement between the two sides are slim.

"The amount of mistrust between Hamas and Fatah is enormous. Hamas has ties with Iran, this is no secret, which makes Hamas not free to take the Palestinian decisions - because Iran is playing with the Palestinian cause."

Over to you Obama: good luck, you'll be needing it.

Good news

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Movie Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes

Madagascar 2 appears to have satisfied most critics, with some giving it the rare compliment (for a sequel) of saying it is better than the first.

The clips look quite good, and I would see it with or without children.

The fight over birthdays

Don't let them eat cake, Saudi cleric says - Los Angeles Times

Saudi Arabia's most senior Muslim cleric recently denounced birthday parties as an unwanted foreign influence, but another prominent cleric declared they were OK.

I assume, then, that gay marriage might not be coming to Islam any time soon.

Yeah, this'll help

Schwarzenegger tells backers of gay marriage: Don't give up

Today, Schwarzenegger urged backers of gay marriage to follow the lesson he learned as a bodybuilder trying to lift weights that were too heavy for him at first. "I learned that you should never ever give up. . . . They should never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done."

The governor's comments came as protesters took to the streets for a fifth day in a row, sometimes marching to Catholic and Mormon churches that supported passage of the ballot measure with public pronouncements and campaign donations.

Bully tactics seem hardly likely to encourage the conservative acceptance of gay marriage that these activists want to see.

The argument which they want to promote in their legal challenge is that "votes can't take away rights." But surely any argument along those lines only encourages the "slippery slope" counterargument that polygamists will argue they have a right to marry too. If anything, the polygamists have a much, much stronger historical and anthropological grounds to argue that polygamy is a "right" deserving of legal recognition in all nations, not just some. If you are a gay person who argues that polygamists do not have a right to a marriage licence, what is it about the idea of gay couples that gives them a "better" right?

The truth is, of course, that it is not a matter of "rights" at all.

As for the argument that preventing gays from marrying is the same as legislating against inter-racial marriage, the best answer to that I have seen was in the First Things blog:

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries state legislatures and courts in the South were prepared to deconstruct and redefine marriage in order to achieve racist goals. For them, race was everything. Similarly, the Supreme Courts of Hawaii and Alaska were also prepared to deconstruct and redefine marriage to advance their vision of social transformation. In Hawaii, the Supreme Court explicitly declared that the State “created” the institution of marriage and thus could redefine it to include persons of the same sex. For them, the only two players in civil society are autonomous, freely-contracting individuals and the state.

Just as the racists tried to redefine marriage for their purposes, thereby distorting its genuine meaning, the Alaskan and Hawaiian courts tried to do the same thing. In both cases the state attempted to redefine marriage to achieve its ideal of an improved society. Both were unjustly tampering with the most crucial pre-political society of all–the unique community of marriage, based upon the union of the two sexes.

Good point, I reckon. I still remain amazed at how quickly the idea of gay marriage has caught on in the liberal West.

Boys and bad PR

Adoptive parents believe boys are 'too much trouble' - The Independent

In England:

Boys wait twice as long for families in some parts of the country, as agencies struggle to challenge negative attitudes among parents, according to research by the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).

Black boys in particular take time to be adopted. One agency complains, though, that social workers are too conservative in trying to stick to middle class, married couples:

"...we have to work harder to get some social workers to see what a single person or a same-sex couple can offer a child."

It would be an odd consequence of the attitudes of white married couples if it meant more black kids end up in gay households.

Catholics went for Obama

Religious voters helped Obama to victory - Los Angeles Times

The Catholic vote went 54% to Obama.

Maybe some of that was due to the Hispanic vote going heavily for him, on the grounds of a friendlier immigration policy?

But looking closer at the figures, it is perhaps not as rebellious as it seems:

While Obama won the Catholic vote overall 54% - 45%, among Catholics who attend mass every week, McCain won 55% - 43%. Clearly the main reason Obama succeeded overall was the fact that Catholic voters echoed the concerns of the rest of the electorate in citing the economy as their top issue..

A bit of history missed

Memorial service held for widow of 'Japan's Schindler'

I don't recall hearing about "Japan's Schindler", Chiune Sugihara, before:

Spielberg has praised Chiune as ‘‘Japan’s Schindler,’’ comparing his deeds to those of Oskar Schindler, the German factory owner in Poland who provided Jews with safe haven during World War II and was depicted in Spielberg’s film, ‘‘Schindler’s List.’’ Chiune, who was the consul general in the then Lithuanian capital of Kaunas from 1938 to 1940, is known for rescuing 6,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

Chiune repeatedly sought permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry to issue visas for the fleeing Jews. But his request was turned down. He then issued them with transit visas on his own initiative. Records show that the recipients traveled via Siberia and Japan to eventual safety in the United States and other destinations.

There is a lengthy Wikipedia post about him. Interesting story. (Although Sugihara acted against his instructions from Japan, I didn't realise the Japanese government generally resisted the urging from Germany to take action against any Jews under its control.)

Thanks for your great sense of timing, guys

Recycle sewage 'as a last resort' | The Australian

I don't get this. I don't know exactly when the Queensland government started working on its sewage recycling plan for Brisbane water, but it certainly got a lot of attention when the water levels in the dams got well below 20% (Wivenhoe got to 15%,) and people were losing well established plants and trees in their yards from the dry. No one could say with certainty at what level the remaining dam water might be too hard to treat. There was some speculation that maybe at around 5%, the dams would be effectively empty anyway.

With that situation, I think most people accepted the government reassurances that it was a safe process, and took the use of such water in Singapore as an example of its safety.

Now the dams are up to 40%, and if we have a relatively "normal" summer, that level could well increase over the next few months. But the government still wants to kick start the system and start pumping treated water into Wivenhoe dam in February.

As this was always the plan, (unless dams had got to 100%, I suppose), why is it only now that various scientist types are starting to say that it may not be a good idea after all? And we are hearing that the Singapore experience is not really similar: most of its recycled water goes into industrial use, apparently.

The only obvious reason to start pumping the water into Wivenhoe in February is likely to be so the government can avoid an accusation that it has wasted money on a facility that was not needed. But can't the treated water now be scaled down and somehow diverted into industrial use until we really do need it to ensure a drinking supply?

This is going to be a hot issue for sometime yet, one suspects.

Saturday night cooking

Here at Opinion Dominion's dominion, it's often your writer's duty to do the Saturday night cooking. I used to usually succeed at this, but for some or other, efforts this year have not been as successful as in the past. The attempt at chicken gumbo was particularly unfortunate, but I blame the recipe book.

Anyhow, last night's effort was a new recipe that turned out pretty successful, although next time we will try a bit less chorizo, and more scallops and basil. The recipe itself is from this week's Brisbane News: (not sure if that link will last more than a week, though):

Olive oil
2 red onions, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
2 chorizo sausages, sliced into 1cm rounds
½tsp sweet paprika
4 garlic cloves, crushed
30ml red wine vinegar
1tbs brown sugar
Salt & pepper
4 basil leaves, shredded
8 scallops, roe off

Heat a splash of olive oil in a medium-sized pan. Saute onion and capsicum over a gentle heat until soft but not browned. add chorizo, paprika and garlic. Saute until chorizo is just cooked. add vinegar and sugar. Reduce heat and simmer until the sauce starts to caramelise. Season with salt and pepper and then toss through the basil. Set aside. Grill or pan-fry scallops for 2 mins on each side. Fold through capsicum sauce and serve. Serves 2.

Brisbane News has always been a very high quality free weekly, particularly in its food sections. Its website has a lot of great recipes from past editions on line.

By the way, last night's wine: Deakin Estate 2008 Sauvignon Blanc: an excellent example of why there is not often a need to spent more than $10 for a bottle of wine in Australia.

Smell the money

Dubai's beaches face a stinking problem :

For several weeks some of the emirate's fabled beaches have been covered with the stinking contents of septic tanks as Dubai suffers the consequences of its frantic and poorly controlled development.

The foul effluent, which threatens to damage Dubai's image, highlights one of the paradoxes of the emirates -- it can build the world's tallest tower and six-star hotels but has not constructed the sewage works it needs....

...the city still has no main drainage system, hence the need for tankers to collect the contents of septic tanks and transport the waste to the emirate's only sewage treatment works at Al-Awir, out in open desert.

The problem is that the tanker drivers have to wait for hours in the heat to get into the sewage works, hence the temptation to dump it into the sea, or just in the middle of the desert.

Oddly, Dubai is not the only rich Arab city that lags in investing in decent waste disposal:

The Jeddah Municipality has signed three contracts worth SR95 million on Saturday with specialized companies to clean up the “Musk Lake,” an open, seeping body of raw sewage east of Jeddah, according to Ibraheem Kutubkhana, deputy mayor for constructions and projects....

More than 800 tanker trucks dump raw sewage into the lake daily. Most of Jeddah’s sewage is handled by on-site septic systems that require fleets of trucks to periodically empty.

The city also dumps untreated sewage directly into the Red Sea because the infrastructure is inadequate to handle the amount of waste produced by residents.

"Musk Lake" might be an open cesspit, but it looks like a fairly pretty one. The reason for some urgency in cleaning up it might have something to do with this:

...a breach in the sand dam, which is blocking the lake, that could lead to massive flooding in the eastern parts of the city.

The Bride of the Red Sea wants to avoid getting her feet wet.

China slowdown

Chinese economy shows signs of fizzling - International Herald Tribune

According to the article:

Economists expect the economy to expand at an annualized rate of as little as 5.8 percent in the fourth quarter this year, down from nearly 11.2 percent in 2007.

Analysts worry that a sharp downturn could undermine the already weakening investment climate and impair some of China's biggest banks, which have bankrolled much of the boom. The Chinese government is said to worry that if economic growth slows to 8 percent or less, not enough jobs will be created in a country that is rapidly urbanizing, and that could lead to social unrest.

Not auguring well

The five most infamous Rahm Emanuel moments | FP Passport

Foreign Policy provides a list of notorious Rahm Emanuel stories, none of them terribly encouraging for people who thought that Obama was planning on doing politics differently.

Even worse, though, is the suggestion that John Kerry may end up as Secretary of State (!)

UPDATE: Slate has a handy guide as to who Obama should not select for his cabinet, and they agree with me about Kerry:

The 2004 election demonstrated that nobody likes him. That isn't disqualifying for a senator, but it is for a diplomat.

UPDATE 2: I see that Fred Barnes on Fox said on the weekend that he initially thought Emanuel's appointment was bad, but he has since changed his mind. Obviously, as I take most of my political cues from Fox, I may have to change my mind too!

More pre-election news that we should have known about

ELECTION 08

Can I get a job with that newspaper?

Just a little weird: no, actually very strange

Barack Obama asked gay bishop Gene Robinson what it was like to be 'first' -Times Online:

Barack Obama sought out controversial gay bishop Gene Robinson not just once but three times during his campaign to become President of the United States, The Times can reveal....

Bishop Robinson... said that Mr Obama’s campaign team had sought him last year and he had the “honour” of three private conversations with the future president of the United States last May and June.

“The first words out of his mouth were: ‘Well you’re certainly causing a lot of trouble’, My response to him was: ‘Well that makes two of us'.”

He said that Mr Obama had indicated his support for equal civil rights for gay and lesbian people and described the election as a “religious experience”.

This is very strange, isn't it, to be seeking out this particular "leader"? I assume abortion wasn't high on the list of topics to discuss.

But the other significant bit is the talk of the election being a "religious experience". I'll get the DVD recorder ready and waiting to see how the likes of Jon Stewart and Bill Maher now riff on how scary it is to have a President elect who seems to see religious significance in his role.

And pigs might be spotted flying over Hollywood too.

Unimportant news

The 'Desperate Housewife' look comes to Washington - Americas, World - The Independent

Don't care what she wears: she still looks kinda intimidating to me.

Let the tears flow, Ellen

U-turn as Californians vote to ban gay marriage - World - smh.com.au

I'll be very disappointed if she doesn't cry.

UPDATE: an interesting side note to the Proposition 8 issue is that many, many Hollywood celebrities donated money to fight against it (including, sad to say, my directorial hero Mr Spielberg. It's funny how much of a gay rights supporter he is, yet off the top of my head I can't recall any of his movies featuring as much as one gay character.) But one prominent figure who did not donate was Rosie O'Donnell. This has caused some people to be less than charitable towards her (from the previous link):

i've lost completel respect for rosie, not that i've really had any for her to begin with. not opening her fat hyprocritcal mouth probably helped the no on 8 cause... lol.

The LA Times gives a good summary of the whole Proposition 8 story, which basically is one of gay activists never accepting the majority opinion of the electorate.

Sad

Bestselling author Michael Crichton dies

How sad. I reckon about every second book was an entertaining (and educational) read, but with an output like his, that was still a high success rate.

I certainly always looked forward to seeing what topic he was going to deal with in his next book.

This'll be interesting

Well, the great mystery of how things will pan out under President Obama begins.

It's hard to see how some of his over-the-top supporters could not end up being disappointed. (One suspects much of Europe will end up the same way.)

And does this election make it more or less likely that Israel will do something about Iran?

All will be revealed in due course...

UPDATE - miscellaneous further comments:

* Not many people have been saying it yet, but the popular vote for McCain was higher than many polls predicted, and actually not too bad given the financial crisis. Surely that alone must have shaved at least one or two percent from his popular vote.

* I've made the point elsewhere, but if I were a Democrat, I would be a little worried that such widespread success in both the legislative and the executive arms of government (and the likely liberal lean of the judiciary in future appointments) is going to make it near impossible for them to disclaim responsibility for anything that goes wrong. Truly, if anything gets broke now, they own it.

* Am I the only one who thought Obama seemed a little too dour in his victory speech ? I genuinely don't understand the accolades given to him as a orator. He's competent, but I really think you've got to be "of the left" to be overly impressed. To make a comparison, the oratory of John F Kennedy also dealt with lofty and idealist themes, and did genuinely impress; but at that time, the fate of Western democracy was by no means assured. Speaking of freedom, self sacrifice, human rights and dignity really had some significance to the entire world.

Obama-talk, on the other hand, is just internal politics - complaining about division, promising solutions to difficult and near intractable problems without any detail at all - dressed up in emotional generalities.

* Nevertheless, this post at Tigerhawk sums up well, I think, the generally magnanimous attitude that most of the right wing commentators take towards the Obama win. They do recognise the significance of the symbolism of a black man being president. It is a million miles from the bitterness, accusations and overwrought emotion the left were threatening if they didn't get their way.

* This post at Bryan Appleyard's blog makes a good comparison:

Obama is a hope candidate, and like all hope candidates (Blair being our most recent), he is doomed from the start by absurd expectations and by his own limitations.

* The other "glass half full" way of looking at it is that Democrats and Bush critics generally have bitched and moaned about the job being done by a US president who really has had the most extraordinary challenges to face. Now with an emphatic win, they've got the keys to the car and (one can only hope) might at least develop a bit of humility and realistic appreciation for the difficulties and imperfect nature of all governments.

UPDATE 2: Currency Lad's post this morning about the hypocrisy of the Democrats as "unifiers" makes the point more eloquently than I can.

Now she tells me

Annie Proulx no longer at home on the range - Los Angeles Times

Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain, presumably did not foresee this consequence:

"I wish I'd never written it," Proulx says...

Not because of the people of Saratoga, a town she doesn't think much of. Not even because the word "brokeback" has been misappropriated, as in, "Hey, you're not goin' brokeback on me, are you?"

It's all the manuscripts, screenplays and letters sent to her by men who rewrite or serialize her story, adding new characters, endings and even successive generations.

"These cover letters," she complains, "always begin with the sentence 'I'm not gay, but . . . ' They think that just because they are men, they understand men better than I do.

Elsewhere, she has given more detail:

She lamented that "remedial writers" are constantly sending "ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for 'fixing' the story..

Damn. What do I do now with my screenplay that deals with how Tim Blair and Mark Steyn accidentally meet up with Ennis and Andrew Sullivan, while all are moosehunting in the backwoods of New Hampshire, and, you know, one thing leads to another...

Interesting

BBC NEWS | Americas | US Elections 2008 | Who will win the electoral college?

This page at the BBC has a good little doo-dah on it that allows you to move a slider to see how the state electoral colleges have voted over the last 60 years.

It's pretty interesting to see how comprehensive some past election wins have been.

Possible headlines for the near future

Arugula shares soar!

Canada closes border with US: "PM: Go back to your homes, celebrities"

Ellen in hospital with dehydration *

Bullwinkle breathes easier as Palin relocates

Kennedy had "Camelot" - Obama establishes commission to find hum-able tune on Broadway

Andrew Sullivan jailed for stalking Trig - Tried to get hair for DNA testing

* slightly oblique reference to the amount of tears predicted to be shed by Ellen DeGeneres if Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, gets up.

Bet you didn't know this...

Snake bite is a 'neglected tropical disease' - New Scientist:

Snakes kill more people than either dengue fever or skin cancer, according to a new worldwide estimate.

See an interactive map of the areas affected

Cobras, vipers, black mambas and other venomous snakes take between 20,000 and 94,000 lives each year, and bite another 421,000 to 1,841,000 people.

Memories of John Kerry

Just thought I would double check on what John Kerry was saying about the number of US troops in Iraq in 2004:

John Kerry set a three-part test for removing U.S. troops from Iraq if he is elected president, while warning that President Bush might commence a more rapid draw-down this fall to improve his re-election prospects.

The three conditions, Mr. Kerry said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, are "to measure the level of stability" in Iraq, "to measure the outlook for the stability to hold" and "to measure the ability ... of their security forces" to defend Iraq. Until each condition is satisfied, he added, "I will provide for the world's need not to have a failed state in Iraq."

Mr. Kerry's remarks, two weeks before he accepts the nomination of a Democratic Party with deep misgivings about the war, indicate the Massachusetts senator isn't preparing to spell out a timetable for rapid withdrawal of the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. To the contrary, he suggested that Mr. Bush was more likely to do so, saying "I've heard [it] said by many people" that the White House might be gearing up to withdraw troops before the November election.

Incurably waffle-y, wasn't he?

It's a surprising twist of fate that McCain has not been able to make political mileage out of being proved right on Iraq. Still, the world is fickle, and recessions help no one in power when they arrive.

Yes, still more about Ross & Brand

Dominic Lawson writing in the Independent on the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand incident, writes about a problem for one type of modern comedian:

....this is where the need of comedians to be seen to tackle taboos has been pushed beyond reason by an increasing absence of boundaries to break. When the whole idea of privacy in sexual matters is seen as hopelessly old-fashioned inhibition, how far must an "edgy" comedian think he needs to go in order to startle his young audience into gasps of incredulous laughter? The answer is: a very, very long way indeed – and yet without any restraint, where is the tension that has always tempered true comedy?

These thoughts came to me on my return to the rail services in England, and hearing a young woman talking loudly in her mobile telephone to some lover about her recent examination for a sexually transmitted disease. The other English people in the carriage seemed unsurprised by this casually revolting monologue; but there was a French couple sitting opposite – their Parisian fastidiousness evident in appearance alone – who gazed in palpable astonishment at this unselfconscious exercise in personal debasement.

I would hazard that neither Russell Brand nor Jonathan Ross would have found this episode surprising, entrenched as they are in what is sometimes laughingly known as "youth culture"

I would argue that there is not an inherent need for comedy to "break boundaries", but still Lawson's point about the increasing crudity of the target youth audience seems accurate.

If Sarah had said that...

Michelle Malkin notes a very recent ramble from "heartbeat away" Joe Biden, that really makes you wonder about how nervous we all might feel if ever he became president.

As one commenter says: "And to think some are worried that Palin could be #2…."

As bad as that?

Election Predictions: Pundits Weigh In

Out of a long list of political pundits listed above (including Karl Rove!) only one - Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard and Fox News - predicts a John McCain win. (And a pretty narrow one at that.)

What's more amusing is how in the comments that follow, quite a few Obama fans see Rove's opinion as being all part of the evil plot to convince Democrats that they don't have to bother voting.

New physics?

CDF Ghost Muons | Cosmic Variance

When the Cosmic Variance physicists aren't spending their time promoting gay marriage, Obama and the death of religion (who said scientists are mostly godless liberals?) they do write interesting stuff about physics.

They are very excited about some experimental results which (if confirmed) indicate that some completely new physics has been discovered. (Well, some completely new particle, which may - or may not - solve the mystery of dark matter.) It's not so often that something so unexpected turns up at particle accelerators.

Some science magazines are reporting it too.

My somewhat cynical take on this: aren't we all glad we spent $6 billion (and counting) on the LHC while in fact there was useful stuff being discovered at old labs?

We'll be hearing more about this

Sex on TV Increases Teen Pregnancy, Says Report - TIME

Perhaps that headline should only be "...is associated with increased Teen Pregnancy", but you get the drift.

It would interesting to have a list of TV shows of the last decade which have been shown to have the most irresponsible attitudes to sex. Two immediately spring to my mind:

1. Sex and the City. Was contraception ever mentioned in that show, even in passing? Did any of the women ever say over their Manhattans "Why did I do that? I hardly know the guy and didn't use a condom. Now I've got chlamydia." (Maybe it was dealt with in one episode; I was hardly a regular viewer.)

2. Ally McBeal, but mainly for one outstandingly irresponsible episode in which she had "one off" sex with a hunky stranger she had just met at a car wash. (I think it was in the car wash itself.) Yet the episode was all about what this meant from a sexual politics point of view, of the "how bad is it for women to just want anonymous sex now and then, after all most men would be happy to do that" variety. I don't recall anyone saying to her "Surely you used a condom?" (The spontaneous nature of the incident indicated that she didn't.) Of course, the follow up should have been: "Are you insane? Get off to the STD clinic immediately".

John McCain could make you rich!

An Australian on line bookmaker is offering 9 to 1 for a John McCain win. Now you know where to invest your dwindling retirement funds.*

*Disclaimer: Opinion Dominion is not a licensed financial adviser, nor even comfortably rich. However, a share of any winnings from this tip will be gratefully received.

The Japanese who can samba

An enclave of Brazilians is testing insular Japan - International Herald Tribune

Until I started visiting Japan, I didn't know anything about the South American connection. You can read an interesting article about Brazilian Japanese who have migrated back to Japan at the link above.

Comment, comment

Comments are cordially invited (on this post) about any recent post.

It's so quiet around here sometimes...

Strange days in England

Pity the women who come within range of Brand and Ross | India Knight - Times Online

Readers will recall last week's post about how a couple of big time BBC radio hosts caused an uproar by leaving obscene and juvenile messages on the answering machine of a 78 year old actor, who didn't find it terribly funny.

Thousands of people complained, the PM criticised the BBC; comedian Russell Brand belatedly resigned, and Jonathan Ross, who has been around forever on British TV as well, was suspended for a few months.

Yet, over the weekend, there were a couple of articles in the British press claiming this was all massive overkill.

The strangest defence of all came from India Knight in The Times (see above). She complains that if the public likes 2 blokes of mature age carrying on like "hysterical teenagers", then the BBC ought to keep running them (provided they apologised, which they had.)

Yet by the end, she claims this:

"...what lies at the centre of this sorry saga is misogyny. None of it would have happened if Ross and Brand displayed - or were asked to display - even an iota of respect for women. Instead, both men have made part of their living out of treating women - wives and mothers excluded - as though they were pieces of meat. This can be very funny but it sticks in the craw."

She then explains how she once did a "straight" interview with Brand, and weeks later (after the interview was published):

I was ... taken aback to find myself named on air as a prelude to Brand discussing my bosoms with, surreally, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, who insistently asked: “Did you sleep with her?”, a question that caused Brand to speculate in some detail about what sleeping with me might have been like. None of this was mean or cruel, but it was out of order and reductive: woman, ergo piece of meat, fair game, punchline, nonperson.

It seems pretty amazing that she defends Brand at all in light of this. He sounds about as loveable, mature and intelligent as our Kyle Sandiland, and I for one would be most upset if he scored a slot on ABC radio or television.

Just all further evidence for my evolving thesis about the great moral decline of England.

More Japan pics

It's time to show some more photos of minor interest from my recent Japan trip. As always, clicking on the photos makes them bigger and somewhat more impressive.

Another small town in the northern part of Honshu is Hanamaki. The centre of town itself is nothing special, but it has many onsen hotels in the area, and we stayed in one which had a particularly pretty setting. Here's the view from the back:


There were pleasant walks to be had around the surrounding farm area, with featured many rice fields. (Mind you, rice is grown absolutely every it can fit in Japan. Staying with friends well in the middle of in Osaka, their apartment looked over a small rice field.) While I had seen green rice fields in spring and summer before, I didn't realise they went a nice golden colour before harvest:


Not only are houses, hotel rooms and cars small in Japan, so are the tiny sized rice harvesters:


Walking around, we saw this older style onsen, still operating apparently, but it put me a little in mind of the one in Spirited Away.


This flower (cosmos, I believe) was very common this visit, including in the gardens and roadsides around Hanamaki:


This was a very large, extra-touristy, onsen hotel, with entertainment each evening. The local farmers' elder sons (the only ones allowed to do this, apparently) presumably make a bit of extra money of an evening by doing the deer dance. This clip is not too exciting, but I'm sure you've wasted your time on worse diversions:



After all that walking and entertainment, it is reassuring to see the automatic defibrillator in the hotel foyer:


These have become an incredible fad in Japan over the last few years, and they appear in all sorts of places now. (Soon I expect they'll be in cars.) One wonders whether the staff administer the shock, or if they have to wait for the ambulance to arrive. (UPDATE: anyone can use them, apparently, and there is a very interesting and detailed article in Nature about how and why they have appeared everywhere in Japan.)

So, you can do certainly do worse than try the onsen of Hanamaki. Wish I could remember the name of the one we stayed at, but my wife will know if anyone is interested.

Developer perils in China

Bursting of bubble hits Chinese middle class | theage.com.au

The Age has an interesting article today on the downturn in the real estate boom in China. There are bargains to be had in new apartments, at least compared to a year or so ago, and things may well get worse.

The most fascinating part of the story is this:

Buyers in the West are familiar with the property market tides that alternate between spreading wealth and financial misery. Western courts tend to dismiss the claims of real estate agents as "mere puffery". But in China, where the concept of private home ownership is scarcely a decade old, those who bought near the top tend to believe they have been robbed. The first buyers to notice their wealth diminishing were those who bought unfinished apartments and watched neighbouring units being sold for much less. They are banding together to accost developers, air their grievances in the media and take their problems to court.

"Don't buy Zhonghai houses, the value will fall fast," chanted a crowd last weekend at a Zhonghai development in eastern Beijing. A Zhonghai manager, Ouyang Guoxin, negotiated the crowd's silence by promising to buy back the apartments at original contract prices during the week, which he never did. On Tuesday the crowd raided the group's offices in West Beijing and disconnected the receptionist's computer.

And as for the legal system: well, it isn't helping. (Mind you, not that it should, in this particular case, but still it could be better handled than this):

Shanghai lawyer Du Yueping says he has received inquiries from disgruntled investors in most major Chinese cities, including 400 in the coastal city of Xiamen. "They're all asking me the same question, how they get their money back," he says.

Each working day since September 23, Mr Du has tried to file a writ in Shanghai's Pudong District Court. Each time, the judge has refused to accept the paper work, citing orders from above.

Pornography, sex (and cows) in Indonesia

It's been months since I've checked the Jakarta Post, which is a pity because I have been missing stories like these.

Australians are rightly concerned about the Labor Party's plans to compulsorily censor the internet at ISP level. (Funny how little time blogs Larvatus Prodeo have spent on the issue. If it had been done under John Howard, the lefty blogosphere and The Age would be brimming every day with column inches about the fascist nature of the government.)

Yet, things could be worse. In Indonesia, what sounds like the world's vaguest anti-pornography legistlation has just been enacted:

Here's the Jakarta Post's list of concerns:

Contentious articles in the porn bill:

1. Article 1: Definition
Pornography is drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, texts, voices, sound, moving pictures, animations, cartoons, poetry, conversations, gestures, or other forms of communicative messages through various kinds of media; and/or performances in front of the public, which may incite obscenity, sexual exploitation and/or violate moral ethics in the community.
Feared impact:
The definition is open to all kinds of interpretation, such as how to define gestures that incite obscenity or sexual exploitation, and will be subject to debate.

2. Articles 20-23: Public Participation
The public can play a role in preventing the production, distribution and use of pornography...by...(d) supervising people on the danger of pornography.
Feared impact:
This article could be used by certain groups to take the law into their own hands by attacking people they believe are violating the law.

3. Articles 8, 34, 36: Criminalization of victims
The articles threatens up to 10 years in prison or Rp 5 billion in fines for violators of the law.
Feared impact:
Artists or models in art shows or productions could be punished for their creativity.

Yep, watch your hand gestures next time you are in Jakarta.

In further Indonesian sex news, this time involving cows, who knew that in Bali, if a man is caught having sex with a bovine, religious purification requires that the cow (but not the man) be drowned?

I note that the man in question was aged 70. Maybe he had been watching too much Japanese DVD porn. (See previous post if you don't understand.)

Anyhow, surely everyone should feel sorry for the cow. But I suppose we do have to teach such brazen temptresses a lesson.

Disturbing Japanese story of the year

It was in Time magazine in June, but I missed it then. (Of course, what the nation needs is younger people more involved, and not in a solo way.)

Phillip Adams - professional dill?

Back in March 2006, I noted how one Radio National fixture (Robyn Williams - who has run the Science Show forever) admitted that he had not remembered that when you catch a plane from Australia in summer to go to New York, it might just be cold at the destination. He wore sandals and (I think) shorts on the plane. Just how many people with a university education and a lifetime of thinking about science do that?

(Men who don't wear closed in footwear on long international flights have always annoyed me anyway: feet and sandals can smell, and I don't reckon they could be as inherently safe as proper shoes in an emergency exit situation.)

Well, a lack of common sense seems to be thriving at Radio National, particularly in the overtly political broadcasters.

Phillip Adams on Wednesday night seemed to have a bit of time to kill, and started his show by detailing his misadventures in getting into his Sydney home. You can listen to it here, but I'll summarise from memory:

a. due to some accident, he has been using only one eye this week;
b. he realised a couple of nights ago during his evening radio show that he had locked himself out of his Sydney house;
c. his house is narrow but 4 levels high;
d. he decided to get in by climbing up to the 3rd level balcony with an extension ladder, which he had trouble working out how to use properly;
e. this he did, in the dark and (by the sounds of it) by himself;
f. he got up to the balcony (the door to which he presumably does not lock) and got inside;
g. his monitored alarm system then went off, waking up the neighbours (as his show ends at 11pm, this was presumably around midnight);
h. the alarm company rang and asked for his password. He could not remember it, nor even his own phone number (!)

He did not bring this up, but he is aged 69. He is well know for his Egyptian artefact collection, and made his millions in advertising.

So, the next time you see a one eyed, grey, rich, somewhat overweight 69 year old man teetering three levels up on an extension ladder in Paddington, you might want to call out to him :"Phillip, there is such a thing as a 24 hour locksmith, you know!"

Clean coal skepticism

Time to bury the 'clean coal' myth | Environment | guardian.co.uk

There's not much detail in the polemic, but I share the skepticism that clean coal has any realistic prospect (at reasonable cost and within an appropriate time frame) of making a difference to greenhouse gas.

Bye bye Doctor

Tennant to quit Doctor Who | Media | guardian.co.uk

Shrimp don't care for CO2

Long-term effects of predicted future seawater CO2 conditions on the survival and growth of the marine shrimp Palaemon pacificus

Another day, another report of an experiment in which a marine creature is shown to be adversely affected by high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere:

The present results demonstrate for the first time that the predicted future seawater CO2 conditions would potentially reduce shrimp, and possibly other crustacean, populations through negatively affecting mortality, growth, and reproduction. This could threaten entire marine ecosystem through disrupting marine food web.

News will be greeted by the sounds of crickets chirping in the audience.

Half of America will find it funny

'I Would Make A Bad President,' Obama Says In Huge Campaign Blunder

Can't trust Catholics

The end of the Catholic vote - Los Angeles Times

A majority of Catholics are going for Obama, according to this article, despite lots of guidance from US bishops that abortion is a crucial issue this election.

George W could holiday there

On war's outer edge in Kurdish Iraq - International Herald Tribune

Iraqi Kurdistan is trying to attract tourists:

Not without reason do guidebooks charitably call Iraqi Kurdistan the "Switzerland of the Middle East."

Apparently, ads have already been shown on American TV. Visiting there sounds like a very mixed experience:

While Erbil is a far cry from Baghdad, signs of the war are impossible to avoid. Hotels are fenced off by concertina wire, vehicles are inspected by Kalashnikov-toting guards, and checkpoints are abundant. On a lesser note, tourists accustomed to high-end comforts may also find Kurdistan frustrating. Electricity is spotty, few locals speak English and latrines, even in some hotels, consist of a hole in the floor.

But the friendliness, and pro-American sentiment, of many Kurds might make up for the poor infrastructure. Mention in a restaurant that you are from the United States and your meal may be gratis. And it is not uncommon for Kurds to invite Westerners to share home-cooked meals, even in inhospitable places.

UQ research on acidification and reefs

Rising CO2 'will hit reefs harder'

As usual with the issue of ocean acidification, this will probably just get 'spotty' media coverage:

In a large experiment on Heron Island, the team simulated CO2 and temperature conditions predicted for the middle and end of this century, based on current forecasts of the world's likely emission levels and warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The results of their analyses of the bleaching, growth and survival of a number of organisms including corals indicates that a number of very important reef builders may be completely lost in near future.

“We found that coralline algae, which glue the reef together and help coral larvae settle successfully, were highly sensitive to increased CO2. These may die on reefs such as those in the southern Great Barrier Reef before year 2050,” says Dr Anthony.

Thanks, Janet

Janet Albrechtsen today supplies some details to confirm that (as I said yesterday) Europe has no reason to feel smug about the current financial crisis.

Mystery man

Confessions from the Obama campaign trail - Los Angeles Times

Interesting "confession" here by a reporter who has been on the campaign trail with Obama, and feels he still doesn't know who he is. His Messianic qualities seem to be somewhat lacking in the back of the campaign plane:

One of the striking ironies is that a man who draws tens of thousands of people to his rallies, whose charisma is likened to that of John F. Kennedy, can be sort of a bore.

The overall image painted is of a man who is overly cautious about controlling his image, and/or just a tad on the emotionally cold side.

PS: I still wonder which personality type it is best to have his or her finger on the nuclear button: someone who has been known to be have strong outbursts of temper, and had more than his fair share of adultery (indicating at least, I suppose, someone well acquainted with emotions, but not necessarily in a good way); or someone who appears to have his emotions tightly bottled up and has spent an inordinate amount of time in calculating his own advancement.

The (no doubt unfair!) images I get is of McCain's aides wrestling him to the ground to stop him giving the "fire all missiles" order, while in an alternative universe Obama intellectualises his way (and convinces his minders) to making a limited nuclear attack in circumstances that will later be regretted.

All silly speculation, I know, but hey it's my blog.

Nuns on the line

Vatican switchboard sees a human touch as the answer

For some reason, the LA Times has a rather charming article on the nuns who answer the phone at the Vatican featured prominently on its website.

Talk about slow to suspect

Teacher Amanda Thompson has lesbian sex with student, court told | The Daily Telegraph

This report of the prosecutor's summary of a teacher/ underage student lesbian affair makes the other adults in the situation sound rather dim:

Mr Fuller [the prosecutor] said Thompson would regularly spend the night at her student's home, where they performed sex acts on each other.

The court heard Thompson was so trusted by the girl's parents that she became "part of the family", attending birthday celebrations, accompanying the family on holidays, and even spending Christmas day at their home.

When the girl's parents discovered the couple in bed, they asked that the bedroom door be left open.

Well, yeah I guess that'll teach to teacher to stay out of their daughter's bed during her regular visits.

As for the teacher's husband:

The court was told Thompson's then-husband became concerned about his wife's relationship with the student when he frequently found them lying in closed rooms or under a blanket upon arriving home from work.

I suppose his wife going over to stay at the girl's house wasn't enough of a sign?

Of course, it may be either the report, or the prosecutor's summary, which makes this case sound stranger than it is. But it does sound very odd.

Oh sure

Nuclear-powered passenger aircraft 'to transport millions' says expert - Times Online

Hey, I like nuclear power as much as the next right wing, technophile blogger, but even I draw the line at nuclear powered aircraft making much sense.

Apparently, the good professor suggests the reactor could be jettisoned and land safely by parachute if the plane is about to crash. One suspects, however, there are still quite a few accidents that happen with insufficient "its time to jettison the reactor" lead time.

More economics

Emerging markets and the financial storm | Into the storm | The Economist

The Economist's summary of a few days back about what's going on and how things are likely to pan out gives some guarded grounds for optimism. But one point that is surprising is this:

Some experts think that China needs growth of 7% a year to contain social unrest.

The magazine thinks China has enough reserves to be able to spend its way to maintaining 8% growth. Just lucky then.

(Of course, what could really throw another level of complexity in the equation would be an Israeli attack on Iran. I think we can safely assume that the economy alone is reason the US would be already telling Israel not to think about it at the moment.)

UPDATE: Paul Krugman remains pessimistic.

No good news today

In hard times, some flirt with survivalism - Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com

I've just spent a hour trying to find good news to post about today. It's official, there is none.

So, let's dwell on how bad things can get. That's fun, sort of.

Yes, the survivalists (who used to thrive more when nuclear war and/or Russian invasion seemed more on the cards) have a new reason to feel justified:

Seattle survivalist Hagmahani sees such commodity hoarding as just a partial measure for weathering a financial crisis.

On his blog, mutuallyassuredsurvival.com, he advises people to prepare for a “major paradigm shift” that will, in a decade, leave the U.S. with a Third World economy.

The $700 billion government financial bailout, in his view, only ensures a crisis that cannot be avoided after unbridled lending and spending.

“One of the most frightening possibilities is the banking system freezing up,” he said. “... Our remittance system is almost entirely through the banking system. … Without ATMs, you can’t get groceries, you can’t get paid… Is that a possibility? Yes.”

Another survivalist recommends stuffing your sofa, not with money, but with food:

Wilson, who also has an online radio show called the Armchair Survivalist, said one of his new clients is a New York interior designer who specializes in outfitting cramped Manhattan apartments with hidden food storage units that double as tasteful furnishings.

Maybe I'll just buy a few packets of seeds and finally get around to getting some chooks for the yard.

Stick to playing music

Cityfile: Rock the Vote Rocked by Incompetence

Hope you didn't register to vote using one of the forms provided by Rock the Vote: Every single one of the 173,000 New York State voter applications downloaded from the group's site was printed with the wrong address, which means thousands of newly-registered voters can expect to be turned away at the polls if the mess isn't sorted out before then.

Heh. Obama's vote will be down slightly in New York, then.

New rocket bad news

Is NASA's Ares doomed?

Incidentally, I can't see President Obama being a big supporter of the space program. With a world wide recession as well, it does not look encouraging for a return to the Moon any time soon.

How encouraging

UK finances may be bad but there are many other nations that owe a lot more - Times Online

More pessimism, this time looking at Britain and Europe.

As has been noted elsewhere, it's ironic that so many Europeans should be gloating about what they see as an American problem coming home to roost, when it actually appears that much of Europe is going to come out of this very badly indeed.

As for borrowing to pump prime the economy, the above article notes:

Meanwhile, some economists have expressed deep concern over how even bigger increases in government borrowing will eventually be paid for. At some point in the future hefty tax increases or spending cuts still look inevitable. But when things are this bad, anything is worth a try.

It's a mystery

The Associated Press: World markets slump as Nikkei hits 26-year low

I don't know about my average reader, but one of the most puzzling things I find about economics is understanding how currency markets are supposed to make any sense. For example: why is the Yen surging, and in the process causing the Nikkei to drop:

"Worries about the impact of the surging yen on Japanese export earnings have hit the Nikkei hard," said Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics.

"This in turn has led to sharp falls in European markets even when, as on Friday, the U.S. had closed higher the day before," he added.

On the radio, it was said that if you invested in Japan 26 years ago, you would now just be "even". Puts our superannuation losses in perspective, one suspects.

Why is the Australian dollar taking such a battering?

Why are economists held in any esteem whatsoever?

UPDATE: here's some explanation of what's happening via Bloomsberg. It still doesn't make any sense to me. For example:

The Australian dollar plunged to a five-year low against the greenback, as concern over a global recession led investors to buy the U.S. dollar as a safe haven. New Zealand's currency gained.

Why is the US dollar a "safe haven"? And why did that powerhouse New Zealand have its currency go up? All very odd and counter-intuitive, if you ask me.

UPDATE 2: here's a better, more detailed explanation of what's going on with the Yen.

An extreme case of cold feet

Nervous groom held for blaze at wedding hotel | The Japan Times Online

Kawata, 39, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of setting fire Saturday to a hotel in Hokuto, northern Yamanashi Prefecture, where he and his fiancee were supposed to get married later in the day... Kawata allegedly started the fire around 2:20 a.m. after spreading a flammable liquid, possibly kerosene, in a corridor behind the hotel's concert hall, the police said.

Lion will sleep with lamb, etc

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (October 26, 2008) - Goodbye To All That

Andrew Sullivan is feeling the love of President Messiah already, it seems:

Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

My guess: Obama will be tested by an international crisis designed to take advantage of him, as Biden predicted, within 6 to 12 months. He'll either want to talk-talk, as he has said he will, and fail; or he might surprise us, throw some military might around, and end up doing pretty much what McCain (or Clinton) would have done anyway.

What I don't see happening is the entrenched enemies of the USA and Israel suddenly seeing the mistake of their ways and world peace ensuing.

Nor do I see any particular reason for an outbreak of sweetness and light in the culture wars within the States. Lefties will crow triumphant, as they did in Australia after John Howard's defeat, yet it will be quite on the cards that a new Republican candidate will look like a plausible alternative again by the next election (as appears is happening in Australia).

Just my guesses, anyway.