A previously unknown group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front said in a warning mailed to Agence France-Presse that it had planted the explosives in the store. It demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan and warned that it would strike again if President Nicolas Sarkozy did not bring the troops home by the end of February.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Merry Christmas, Paris
Explosives found at Paris department store - International Herald Tribune
Fabricator to fabricate some more
James Frey to write 'third book of the Bible' | Books | guardian.co.uk
Take this, for example:
Do books of this kind ever sell well? They are just so obviously fantasy works of current pop morality, who can see any inherent value to them?James Frey is moving on from his drugs and booze-soaked memoirs to write the third book of the Bible, in which his version of Jesus will perform gay marriages.
Talking to online magazine The Rumpus.net, Frey said he had just finished an outline for the book, and was about to start writing it. "It's the third book of the Bible, called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible," he told interviewer and fellow author Stephen Elliott. "My idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today. What would he believe? What would he preach? How would he live? With who?"
Take this, for example:
Frey said his version would see Jesus living with a prostitute. "It doesn't matter how or who you love. I don't believe the messiah would condemn gay men and women," he said. Judas, meanwhile, would be the "same as he was two thousand years ago", a "selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love".This has "remainder bin" written all over it.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
ETS lessons not learnt
Crikey - Rudd's talking out of his mandate
More on Labor's emissions trading scheme from Bernard Keane:
Even more remarkable that the well publicised problems with the European scheme do not seem to be being properly addressed.
I must say, however, that is more typical of the Left to not care about results so much, as long as the intentions are "good" (ie ideologically sound, or politically correct if you will). Aboriginal welfare is a typical example of that, but also the way Labor supporters considered it a virtual crime that Australia hadn't signed the ineffective Kyoto Treaty, even though it was meeting its targets as if it had. The attitude is not entirely gone: there are commenting on blogs "oh well, better than nothing."
In fact, it is worse than nothing if it takes away the realisation that nothing effective is being achieved.
More on Labor's emissions trading scheme from Bernard Keane:
This scheme is so badly designed there’s a real question as to whether it is worth establishing. This is one issue on which greenhouse sceptics and ardent greenies can be in furious agreement: the Government’s ETS is profoundly flawed. Two groups previously excluded from free permits -- the coal-fired power industry and industries between 1000-1500t per million dollars revenue, will now have access to them (the coal industry will get $3.9b worth of free permits over five years -- not $3.9b in cash, as a lot of us thought yesterday). Throw in that a change to the formula to enable firms to use value added instead of revenue in determining eligibility will mean more firms will qualify for 90% free permits, and the scheme will commence with minimal incentive for our biggest polluters to cut back.Yes, it is remarkable that both Jennifer Marohasy and the Greens are going to be criticising the scheme's design.It starts off thus flawed and gets worse. Under the Green Paper, the proportion of free permits was capped at 30%, which at least constrained our most polluting industries to find more efficient and less carbon-intensive ways of operating if they wanted to expand. Under the White Paper, the supply of free permits simply increases as our heaviest polluters expand. As Martin Parkinson, head of the Climate Change department said yesterday, this has potentially serious consequences for scheme revenue. It also means that there’s a real danger that at some point in a few years’ time, more permits will be given away to heavy polluters than auctioned for use by those with low emissions.
Well done, Mr Rudd -- you’ve invented a scheme that actually punishes low emitters and rewards heavy emitters.
Even more remarkable that the well publicised problems with the European scheme do not seem to be being properly addressed.
I must say, however, that is more typical of the Left to not care about results so much, as long as the intentions are "good" (ie ideologically sound, or politically correct if you will). Aboriginal welfare is a typical example of that, but also the way Labor supporters considered it a virtual crime that Australia hadn't signed the ineffective Kyoto Treaty, even though it was meeting its targets as if it had. The attitude is not entirely gone: there are commenting on blogs "oh well, better than nothing."
In fact, it is worse than nothing if it takes away the realisation that nothing effective is being achieved.
For Andrew Bolt to ponder
Arctic melt passes the point of no return - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent
Andrew Bolt likes to spend time looking at satellite images of the winter Arctic ice cover lately, all the more to pooh-pooh global warming with.
He doesn't seem to often consider the issue of the depth of renewed winter cover, which common sense would suggest is just as important for the future of the cover as how much area it extends to each winter.
And he ought to read this article which seems consistent with the recent post here about satellite evidence that warmer temperatures are unduly weighted to the North of the planet:
Andrew Bolt likes to spend time looking at satellite images of the winter Arctic ice cover lately, all the more to pooh-pooh global warming with.
He doesn't seem to often consider the issue of the depth of renewed winter cover, which common sense would suggest is just as important for the future of the cover as how much area it extends to each winter.
And he ought to read this article which seems consistent with the recent post here about satellite evidence that warmer temperatures are unduly weighted to the North of the planet:
Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen.
Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover.
Squid lovers take note
Rise in CO2 'affects jumbo squid'
Ocean acidification is likely to make jumbo squid unhappy.
Well, good to see that squid lovers of the world will at last be convinced to take ocean acidification seriously.
Ocean acidification is likely to make jumbo squid unhappy.
Well, good to see that squid lovers of the world will at last be convinced to take ocean acidification seriously.
Indignity unrewarded
Colonoscopies Miss Many Cancers, Study Finds - NYTimes.com
This is startling news:
This is startling news:
I am feeling more mortal now.Instead of preventing 90 percent of cancers, as some doctors have told patients, colonoscopies might actually prevent more like 60 percent to 70 percent.
“This is a really dramatic result,” said Dr. David F. Ransohoff, a gasteroenterologist at the University of North Carolina. “It makes you step back and worry, ‘What do we really know?’ ”
Dr. Ransohoff and other screening experts say patients should continue to have the test, because it is still highly effective. But they also recommend that patients seek the best colonoscopists by, for example, asking pointed questions about how many polyps they find and remove. They also say patients should be scrupulous in the unpleasant bowel cleansing that precedes the test, and promptly report symptoms like bleeding even if they occur soon after a colonoscopy.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Rudd's targets, and other problems
It's hard to know what to say about Kevin Rudd's greenhouse gas targets today.
In fact, the whole CO2 issue is an ugly mess at the moment.
On the one hand, I would like to see CO2 emissions tackled seriously, and it sure sounds like Rudd's plan is one that largely avoids taking the hard decisions. As Robert Merkel said over at LP, industry has sounded so happy with the target that it looks clear that it is too generous to them.
On the other hand, countries announcing high targets which don't appear to have any realistic hope of success under emissions trading schemes similar to those already in place are just selling false hope, and a more modest target at least has the benefit of realism.
On the third hand, CO2 sequestration seems obviously a crock that the coal industry has latched onto to try to save its skin. Yet it has seemingly captured the imagination of Rudd and (probably) the Liberals. Kevin Rudd touring a new, but tiny, solar power plant for a small outback community also gives out the wrong impression about how fast solar is advancing here.
As a whole series of posts here recently has indicated, the fundamental problem seems to be increasingly recognised: there is strong reason for believing that emissions trading schemes are a hopelessly flawed way of trying to address the issue, especially if offsets are allowed. Offsets will always be at the core of the potential for corruption, unintended consequences, and a huge and difficult verification process.
It also seems that some people on all sides of the greenhouse fence (Lomborg, Lovelock and Hansen, for example) are being more forthcoming in arguing that concentrating on ETS is a bit of a sideshow: it's more important for governments to push directly for the technological developments that will generate lots of power and actually reduce CO2 emissions. To worry too much about ETS elevates process over results, and this has been at the heart of my long standing scepticism about Kyoto. (Stories of Kyoto's failures often remind me of the "Yes Minister" episode in which a new hospital completely devoid of patients, but full of busy administrative staff, is said to be operating very successfully.)
The anti-CO2 advocates emphasising innovative nuclear technology as a key feature of reduced CO2 includes Hansen. I was surprised to see that the Australia greenhouse website BraveNewClimate has also taken to posting about new generation nuclear. Meanwhile, Obama's new Energy Secretary Steven Chu is a physicist with a lot of sympathy for nuclear over coal.
Yet the Green movement is going to resist all such talk; they all give the impression they were spooked by nuclear as children and can't grow out of it. All their talk of renewable energy as being able to save the day is just not very believable.
The best hope is probably that Steven Chu will come up with a detailed, direct and innovative plan for dealing with greenhouse in a way that has a significant role for new types of nuclear power. Obama will then have to sell it to the American public and Congress.
In Australia, the truly brave but proper thing for the Liberals to do would be to argue that they will commit to higher targets, but only on the basis that nuclear is to be an essential part of the mix. Personally, I would argue for some direct involvement in the nuclear pebble bed development going on in South Africa and China. (The timetable for getting a demonstration plant in South Africa up and running just keeps on getting extended; surely there is scope for more international involvement in funding this? The technology is not dramatically new, but has the good PR feature of not being able to melt down, and should be modular in design for easy international deployment.)
I actually think that nuclear power will soon be sell-able to the Australian public, but whether the political will is there or not is yet to be seen. (Certainly, if Obama comes out strongly pro-nuclear, it will be easier for the Liberals to adopt such a policy too.)
But for the moment, there are no strong grounds for optimism that anyone has worked out the best way forward.
UPDATE: In light of what I wrote last night, I would say that Tim Colebatch in The Age gets to the heart of the problem with Kevin Rudd's scheme here:
In fact, the whole CO2 issue is an ugly mess at the moment.
On the one hand, I would like to see CO2 emissions tackled seriously, and it sure sounds like Rudd's plan is one that largely avoids taking the hard decisions. As Robert Merkel said over at LP, industry has sounded so happy with the target that it looks clear that it is too generous to them.
On the other hand, countries announcing high targets which don't appear to have any realistic hope of success under emissions trading schemes similar to those already in place are just selling false hope, and a more modest target at least has the benefit of realism.
On the third hand, CO2 sequestration seems obviously a crock that the coal industry has latched onto to try to save its skin. Yet it has seemingly captured the imagination of Rudd and (probably) the Liberals. Kevin Rudd touring a new, but tiny, solar power plant for a small outback community also gives out the wrong impression about how fast solar is advancing here.
As a whole series of posts here recently has indicated, the fundamental problem seems to be increasingly recognised: there is strong reason for believing that emissions trading schemes are a hopelessly flawed way of trying to address the issue, especially if offsets are allowed. Offsets will always be at the core of the potential for corruption, unintended consequences, and a huge and difficult verification process.
It also seems that some people on all sides of the greenhouse fence (Lomborg, Lovelock and Hansen, for example) are being more forthcoming in arguing that concentrating on ETS is a bit of a sideshow: it's more important for governments to push directly for the technological developments that will generate lots of power and actually reduce CO2 emissions. To worry too much about ETS elevates process over results, and this has been at the heart of my long standing scepticism about Kyoto. (Stories of Kyoto's failures often remind me of the "Yes Minister" episode in which a new hospital completely devoid of patients, but full of busy administrative staff, is said to be operating very successfully.)
The anti-CO2 advocates emphasising innovative nuclear technology as a key feature of reduced CO2 includes Hansen. I was surprised to see that the Australia greenhouse website BraveNewClimate has also taken to posting about new generation nuclear. Meanwhile, Obama's new Energy Secretary Steven Chu is a physicist with a lot of sympathy for nuclear over coal.
Yet the Green movement is going to resist all such talk; they all give the impression they were spooked by nuclear as children and can't grow out of it. All their talk of renewable energy as being able to save the day is just not very believable.
The best hope is probably that Steven Chu will come up with a detailed, direct and innovative plan for dealing with greenhouse in a way that has a significant role for new types of nuclear power. Obama will then have to sell it to the American public and Congress.
In Australia, the truly brave but proper thing for the Liberals to do would be to argue that they will commit to higher targets, but only on the basis that nuclear is to be an essential part of the mix. Personally, I would argue for some direct involvement in the nuclear pebble bed development going on in South Africa and China. (The timetable for getting a demonstration plant in South Africa up and running just keeps on getting extended; surely there is scope for more international involvement in funding this? The technology is not dramatically new, but has the good PR feature of not being able to melt down, and should be modular in design for easy international deployment.)
I actually think that nuclear power will soon be sell-able to the Australian public, but whether the political will is there or not is yet to be seen. (Certainly, if Obama comes out strongly pro-nuclear, it will be easier for the Liberals to adopt such a policy too.)
But for the moment, there are no strong grounds for optimism that anyone has worked out the best way forward.
UPDATE: In light of what I wrote last night, I would say that Tim Colebatch in The Age gets to the heart of the problem with Kevin Rudd's scheme here:
Ross Garnaut envisaged a rigorous emissions trading scheme with few exemptions, and raising $4 billion a year to speed research, development and commercialisation of clean technology. The Rudd model spends everything on compensation, and has nothing left over to help solve the problem.In The Australian, George Megalogenis looks at the strange decision to pay families and pensioners more than anyone expects them to lose due to the scheme. But, as was to expected from Paul Kelly's recent article, the editorial supports Rudd and calls critics of his plan "deep Greens". Hmmph.
Rich country, poor country: more Kyoto silliness
Climate negotiatiors need to overhaul their list of who's rich and who's poor. - By Michael A. Levi - Slate Magazine
This appeared last Thursday, but is well worth the read for yet another example of the ways Kyoto was flawed from the start.
This appeared last Thursday, but is well worth the read for yet another example of the ways Kyoto was flawed from the start.
Not your typical Japanese story
Wild boar goes on rampage in Wakayama; four injured
Hey, shouldn't Australia have more rampaging boar stories than Japan? We have a dangerous wildlife reputation to uphold, after all.
Hey, shouldn't Australia have more rampaging boar stories than Japan? We have a dangerous wildlife reputation to uphold, after all.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Quantum of Editing
I can't quite recall the last time I went to the cinema to see a film that you wouldn't take an 8 year old to. "War of the Worlds" perhaps? Anyway, it doesn't exactly bother me, given the remarkable paucity of adult films of interest coming out of Hollywood for, what, the last 8 years or so?
So it is with a considerable sense of novelty that I can report on Quantum of Solace, seen last night, in Gold Class no less. Because the tickets themselves were a gift, my wife and I even tried Gold Class food for the first time, as well as a bottle of cheap Australian sparkling wine at a not so cheap price. A food review will follow.
The good things about the movie:
* Daniel Craig: it's hard to know why the owners of the Bond franchise didn't think of this earlier: cast an actor who is fit, buff and looks capable of ruthless killing to play an action hero who, when necessary, ruthlessly kills. Kind of obvious, in retrospect. I'm probably one of the few people in the cinema who hadn't seen Casino Royale (it's on DVD at home; I'll get around to it one day,) so the novelty factor of Craig as Bond may account for much of my enjoyment.
* You really know you've been to a big budget movie with interesting locations and hundreds of extras. It makes watching 99% of Australian movies feel akin to inviting a small theatre troupe of 4 to come and perform a few dramatic scenes in your living room.
* Judi Dench. Makes M feel very real. The producers are probably paying for her to sleep in an oxygen tent, or some such, as a way of extending the life of someone who has become a real asset to the series.
* While the plot exposition was somewhat rushed, I can remember essentially what it was about. This compares favourably to the Timothy Dalton Bonds of the 1980's, which had the curious feature of having plots that evaporated from memory within about 5 steps walking out of the cinema door. (I must admit, all of the Jack Ryan movies affected me the same way. Enjoyable enough while on screen, but just terribly forgettable as soon as they finished.)
The not so good features:
* The editing: this hyper-editing of action sequences was complained about in several reviews, and with good reason. It's a crap method of building excitement artificially which seems only to be really appreciated by the under 30's whose attention span does not extend to reading books. What's worse, when trying to eat nachos in a Gold Class cinema, the time your eyes are diverted to getting a good helping of cheese and avocado onto a corn chip means you've missed 3 key points in a chase.
* I thought that Casino Royale featured the Bond theme only at the end? This movie does the same, which seems a pity really.
Overall, it was still quite enjoyable, and as with many reviewers, I suspect that if the producers let the series lighten up a bit in the next one (and ditch the frenetic editing), it could be something very special. I see that Casino Royale and Quantum have taken over well over a billion dollars combined at the box office (and that's not counting DVD sales). Craig will be a wanted man for some time yet.
Of the reviews I have read, Anthony Lane's in the New Yorker is quite funny but also pretty accurate. I like this line (out of many good ones):
Here's hoping for more free Gold Pass tickets this Christmas.
So it is with a considerable sense of novelty that I can report on Quantum of Solace, seen last night, in Gold Class no less. Because the tickets themselves were a gift, my wife and I even tried Gold Class food for the first time, as well as a bottle of cheap Australian sparkling wine at a not so cheap price. A food review will follow.
The good things about the movie:
* Daniel Craig: it's hard to know why the owners of the Bond franchise didn't think of this earlier: cast an actor who is fit, buff and looks capable of ruthless killing to play an action hero who, when necessary, ruthlessly kills. Kind of obvious, in retrospect. I'm probably one of the few people in the cinema who hadn't seen Casino Royale (it's on DVD at home; I'll get around to it one day,) so the novelty factor of Craig as Bond may account for much of my enjoyment.
* You really know you've been to a big budget movie with interesting locations and hundreds of extras. It makes watching 99% of Australian movies feel akin to inviting a small theatre troupe of 4 to come and perform a few dramatic scenes in your living room.
* Judi Dench. Makes M feel very real. The producers are probably paying for her to sleep in an oxygen tent, or some such, as a way of extending the life of someone who has become a real asset to the series.
* While the plot exposition was somewhat rushed, I can remember essentially what it was about. This compares favourably to the Timothy Dalton Bonds of the 1980's, which had the curious feature of having plots that evaporated from memory within about 5 steps walking out of the cinema door. (I must admit, all of the Jack Ryan movies affected me the same way. Enjoyable enough while on screen, but just terribly forgettable as soon as they finished.)
The not so good features:
* The editing: this hyper-editing of action sequences was complained about in several reviews, and with good reason. It's a crap method of building excitement artificially which seems only to be really appreciated by the under 30's whose attention span does not extend to reading books. What's worse, when trying to eat nachos in a Gold Class cinema, the time your eyes are diverted to getting a good helping of cheese and avocado onto a corn chip means you've missed 3 key points in a chase.
* I thought that Casino Royale featured the Bond theme only at the end? This movie does the same, which seems a pity really.
Overall, it was still quite enjoyable, and as with many reviewers, I suspect that if the producers let the series lighten up a bit in the next one (and ditch the frenetic editing), it could be something very special. I see that Casino Royale and Quantum have taken over well over a billion dollars combined at the box office (and that's not counting DVD sales). Craig will be a wanted man for some time yet.
Of the reviews I have read, Anthony Lane's in the New Yorker is quite funny but also pretty accurate. I like this line (out of many good ones):
The new movie gives us Bond in mourning—a condition that issues, according to Freud, in melancholy and a general indifference to life, but which causes this particular sufferer to stab people in the neck and toss them from tall buildings.As for Gold Class cinema food: the beef nachos are pretty good; the salt and pepper squid was meant to be "crispy" but wasn't. (It didn't taste too bad anyway.) Drinking sparkling wine probably improves any movie, and the last alcohol I drank while in a cinema (of sorts) was probably apple cider at a drive in circa 1980.
Here's hoping for more free Gold Pass tickets this Christmas.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Ninja Santa
It's hard finding cheery stuff to post about at the moment. But there is always the recently discovered (by this blog anyway) Ask a Ninja ninja. Here's his take on Christmas, which will probably particularly appeal to the boys in your household:
Friday, December 12, 2008
Larvatus P'd off?
Hey, did lefty blog Larvatus Prodeo just lose its domain name? That's kind of embarrassing, isn't it?
Update: they're back.
Update: they're back.
There are Christians in Gaza?
Analysis: Cruelty and silence in Gaza | Middle East | Jerusalem Post
I must admit I didn't know there were any there at all (or any who are open about it). Turns out there's around 2,000 to 3,000, and they are not feeling especially wanted, to put it mildly.
I must admit I didn't know there were any there at all (or any who are open about it). Turns out there's around 2,000 to 3,000, and they are not feeling especially wanted, to put it mildly.
Fodder for both sides?
Earth has warmed 0.4 C in 30 years
Go to the article to see a map just released showing where warming has occurred in the last 30 years. The article says:
The part that warming skeptics will take and run with is this:
(Interestingly, Jennifer Marohasy in her skeptic blog recently posted that satellite temperature data was "inconvenient but accurate". What's she going to say about this, then? Somehow, I don't she and her band of followers are going to be convinced.)
Go to the article to see a map just released showing where warming has occurred in the last 30 years. The article says:
Half of the globe has warmed at least one half of one degree Fahrenheit (0.3 C) in the past 30 years, while half of that -- a full quarter of the globe -- warmed at least one full degree Fahrenheit (0.6 C), according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.However, the warming is very uneven, being much stronger in the far north, while much of Antarctica cooled.
Globally, Earth's atmosphere warmed an average of about 0.4 C (or about 0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) in 30 years, according to data collected by sensors aboard NOAA and NASA satellites. More than 80 percent of the globe warmed by some amount.
The part that warming skeptics will take and run with is this:
This is a pattern of warming not forecast by any of the major global climate models.Still, it does sound like pretty clear evidence of substantial warming. Expect much comment about the map in the global warming blogosphere soon.
(Interestingly, Jennifer Marohasy in her skeptic blog recently posted that satellite temperature data was "inconvenient but accurate". What's she going to say about this, then? Somehow, I don't she and her band of followers are going to be convinced.)
Why new energy develops slowly?
Are Chemists, Engineers on Green Jobs List? - Dot Earth Blog -
The Dot Earth blog has a lengthy post talking about the relatively modest amount of money spent on R&D in the US on energy. I'm sure they won't mind if I reproduce the graph here:
Interesting, hey? The big band of yellow in the 1960's was for the Apollo program.
Gives some plausibility to those who say we need the equivalent of an Apollo program to get energy innovation really going. It's also amazing to note how much health consumes.
The Dot Earth blog has a lengthy post talking about the relatively modest amount of money spent on R&D in the US on energy. I'm sure they won't mind if I reproduce the graph here:
Interesting, hey? The big band of yellow in the 1960's was for the Apollo program.
Gives some plausibility to those who say we need the equivalent of an Apollo program to get energy innovation really going. It's also amazing to note how much health consumes.
More ETS criticism
Money and Lobbyists Hurt European Efforts to Curb Gases - Series - NYTimes.com
Anyone else noticed how much criticism of the European effort at an emissions trading scheme there is at the moment?
Now the New York Times joins in.
Anyone else noticed how much criticism of the European effort at an emissions trading scheme there is at the moment?
Now the New York Times joins in.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Chinese, food and cruelty
SBS is currently showing a 4 part documentary on Wednesday evenings called "The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World". Last night was episode 2.
I missed part of the first episode, so I'm not sure where in China it is, but the place is truly gigantic. (It can seat 5,000 customers.)
The show is by turns fascinating and (when it comes to treatment of animals) pretty horrifying to Western eyes.
First, the fascinating part. The show seems to give a pretty good insight into the psychology of many Chinese, and if last night's episode was anything to go by, it paints a pretty bleak picture of a materialistic society very obsessed with money. Sure, much of the population was grindingly poor until very recently, so a concern with money is understandable from that point of view. But still, it's not a good a look.
It also indicates that it will be a very unhappy society if lots of people stop making money in the economic downturn. My scepticism as to the successful future of China remains.
The animal cruelty issue was on display in both episodes. Last week, it was the dish where the live fish has its body cooked in boiling oil with its head held out, so it can be served on the plate with its mouth moving. OK, so it's cold blooded; it looks gross to me, but I won't get too worked up about seafood eaten while half alive.
But last night there was a brief scene of a chicken being scolded in boiling water while still alive. The dish was served with the head on, but still I can't see why the scalding and feather removal has to start while it is alive.
I do not understand why the Chinese seem immune to Western ideas of animal cruelty. In Congo Journey, a book I am currently reading, an America watching the way some pygmies kill an antelope makes the observation that it is only with the farming of animals, which involves caring for their welfare, that people start to worry about animal cruelty.
Nice theory, but it doesn't seem to have worked with the Chinese!
Harry Clarke had a post about this topic earlier this year, but none of the comments really enlightened as to why the Chinese don't seem to feel for animals in quite the same way much of the West does.
Still, a lot goes on in Western farming without being noticed. Chickens have a pretty miserable life here too, but at least a quick death.
Same with pigs. The cages they use to stop pregnant sows moving for months at a time while pregnant are (I reckon) just indefensible from a cruelty point of view, and it's only lack of knowledge in the community that hasn't led to the practice being rejected earlier. (The sow can stand, and sort of lie down, but not turn around. It is stuck in that position for up to 4 months. Can you imagine the uproar if dogs were allowed to be confined in that way?)
I see that a website (presumably industry funded) that defends the practice is careful to avoid any photos. A stop to the practice was one of the propositions successfully passed in California recently.
So it's not as if the West is completely cruelty free. Still, it seems hard to imagine the Chinese even getting interested in such issues, and I don't know why.
I missed part of the first episode, so I'm not sure where in China it is, but the place is truly gigantic. (It can seat 5,000 customers.)
The show is by turns fascinating and (when it comes to treatment of animals) pretty horrifying to Western eyes.
First, the fascinating part. The show seems to give a pretty good insight into the psychology of many Chinese, and if last night's episode was anything to go by, it paints a pretty bleak picture of a materialistic society very obsessed with money. Sure, much of the population was grindingly poor until very recently, so a concern with money is understandable from that point of view. But still, it's not a good a look.
It also indicates that it will be a very unhappy society if lots of people stop making money in the economic downturn. My scepticism as to the successful future of China remains.
The animal cruelty issue was on display in both episodes. Last week, it was the dish where the live fish has its body cooked in boiling oil with its head held out, so it can be served on the plate with its mouth moving. OK, so it's cold blooded; it looks gross to me, but I won't get too worked up about seafood eaten while half alive.
But last night there was a brief scene of a chicken being scolded in boiling water while still alive. The dish was served with the head on, but still I can't see why the scalding and feather removal has to start while it is alive.
I do not understand why the Chinese seem immune to Western ideas of animal cruelty. In Congo Journey, a book I am currently reading, an America watching the way some pygmies kill an antelope makes the observation that it is only with the farming of animals, which involves caring for their welfare, that people start to worry about animal cruelty.
Nice theory, but it doesn't seem to have worked with the Chinese!
Harry Clarke had a post about this topic earlier this year, but none of the comments really enlightened as to why the Chinese don't seem to feel for animals in quite the same way much of the West does.
Still, a lot goes on in Western farming without being noticed. Chickens have a pretty miserable life here too, but at least a quick death.
Same with pigs. The cages they use to stop pregnant sows moving for months at a time while pregnant are (I reckon) just indefensible from a cruelty point of view, and it's only lack of knowledge in the community that hasn't led to the practice being rejected earlier. (The sow can stand, and sort of lie down, but not turn around. It is stuck in that position for up to 4 months. Can you imagine the uproar if dogs were allowed to be confined in that way?)
I see that a website (presumably industry funded) that defends the practice is careful to avoid any photos. A stop to the practice was one of the propositions successfully passed in California recently.
So it's not as if the West is completely cruelty free. Still, it seems hard to imagine the Chinese even getting interested in such issues, and I don't know why.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
New technology and evil
Mumbai Terrorists Relied on New Technology for Attacks - NYTimes.com
Satellite phone, GPS, Google maps and VOIP appear to all be believed to have been used by the Mumbai terrorists.
The article also notes that the terrorists were in contact with Pakistan during the siege, and could get updates as to where the Indian military from their bosses who were watching TV coverage.
I must admit, I thought it was foolish of the Australia guy holed up in the hotel to keep ringing and talking to Australian media for this very reason. (Not that his calls would have made Pakistani TV, I guess, but you never know who's watching Australian TV too.)
Satellite phone, GPS, Google maps and VOIP appear to all be believed to have been used by the Mumbai terrorists.
The article also notes that the terrorists were in contact with Pakistan during the siege, and could get updates as to where the Indian military from their bosses who were watching TV coverage.
I must admit, I thought it was foolish of the Australia guy holed up in the hotel to keep ringing and talking to Australian media for this very reason. (Not that his calls would have made Pakistani TV, I guess, but you never know who's watching Australian TV too.)
Sabotage from the future
Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
See the link for an on-the-spot report on the repairs to the Large Hadron Collider, which blew up (well, a section of it at least) not long after it was turned on.
Current expectations are that it may start operating again in mid 2009, although I have read elsewhere it won't be turned up to 11 (so to speak) until 2010.
This is good news for those who worry about micro black holes or other things it may create. (And yeah, I am still curious to know if Plaga is wrong in his latest assertion, and whether absolutely all possible events have been considered. I have said before, the cosmic ray/neutron star argument may suggest there is no danger for stars; planets might be a different matter.)
Anyhow, the post at Cosmic Variance points out that it is still not clear what caused the initial fault which was "...a resistive zone developed in the electrical bus in the region between dipole C24 and quadrupole Q24." As the thing was vaporised, it's not that easy to find the cause of the "resistive zone" problem.
This is good, because it still allows for my pet science fiction-y theory as to what happened. The LHC has been suggested as possibly creating the right conditions for time travel, as well as mini black holes. If it is actually dangerous to the planet, then time travellers from the future (or another branch of the future?) may well have been taking a big interest in it from the start, and are actively sabotaging it. It may not require actual visitors from the future; maybe just sufficient ability to hack information into the computers. Maybe the time travel is allowed by the LHC itself at low power; maybe there is a different mechanism. (I know that it is an example of the grandfather paradox to argue that the LHC works as a time machine that then allows to future to prevent it from being turned on.)
I expect someone else has probably already thought of this, but if not I claim "dibs" on it!
If only X files was still being made...
See the link for an on-the-spot report on the repairs to the Large Hadron Collider, which blew up (well, a section of it at least) not long after it was turned on.
Current expectations are that it may start operating again in mid 2009, although I have read elsewhere it won't be turned up to 11 (so to speak) until 2010.
This is good news for those who worry about micro black holes or other things it may create. (And yeah, I am still curious to know if Plaga is wrong in his latest assertion, and whether absolutely all possible events have been considered. I have said before, the cosmic ray/neutron star argument may suggest there is no danger for stars; planets might be a different matter.)
Anyhow, the post at Cosmic Variance points out that it is still not clear what caused the initial fault which was "...a resistive zone developed in the electrical bus in the region between dipole C24 and quadrupole Q24." As the thing was vaporised, it's not that easy to find the cause of the "resistive zone" problem.
This is good, because it still allows for my pet science fiction-y theory as to what happened. The LHC has been suggested as possibly creating the right conditions for time travel, as well as mini black holes. If it is actually dangerous to the planet, then time travellers from the future (or another branch of the future?) may well have been taking a big interest in it from the start, and are actively sabotaging it. It may not require actual visitors from the future; maybe just sufficient ability to hack information into the computers. Maybe the time travel is allowed by the LHC itself at low power; maybe there is a different mechanism. (I know that it is an example of the grandfather paradox to argue that the LHC works as a time machine that then allows to future to prevent it from being turned on.)
I expect someone else has probably already thought of this, but if not I claim "dibs" on it!
If only X files was still being made...
Keeping it quiet
The gospel truth? | Jerusalem Post
Interesting article here that talks about the academic work on the origins of the Koran, which (as with similar work on the Bible starting more than a century ago) challenges the fundamentalist belief that the books are literally the word of God.
The writer points out that these academics like to keep a low profile, but if we really want Islamic fundamentalism to change, then it should be the subject of popular discussion.
Interesting article here that talks about the academic work on the origins of the Koran, which (as with similar work on the Bible starting more than a century ago) challenges the fundamentalist belief that the books are literally the word of God.
The writer points out that these academics like to keep a low profile, but if we really want Islamic fundamentalism to change, then it should be the subject of popular discussion.
Second post of the week with difficult to find tasteful title
Britain's Tongue, Kidney and Brains Boom - TIME
From the above article:
I trust they have been re-branded by now.
From the above article:
Lancashire, an industrial area in northwest England, is famous for its offal dishes, including liver, kidney, tripe (the lining of a cow's stomach), cow's heel, sheep's trotters and elder (cow's udder). There were more than 260 tripe shops in regional capital Manchester a century ago, many of which sold faggots, a traditional English dish made from a mixture of pork liver, fatty pork and herbs wrapped in an intestinal membrane.
I trust they have been re-branded by now.
Room for mischief here
First Muslim-friendly virtual world goes online
A trial version of the world's first Muslim-friendly virtual world was launched Tuesday, where users can create an online persona, design their own rooms, buy virtual items and interact with others.I wonder if it is OK for avatar women to show their face there?
Called Muxlim Pal and created by the Finnish-based company Muxlim.com, the English-language site caters primarily to Muslims living in western countries who long to reconnect with other Muslims and Muslim culture. ...
On Muxlim Pal, which is free of charge to join, users can shop for clothes for their avatar at the mall, hang out at the beach cafe, pray at the mosque or go to concerts.
What makes Muxlim Pal different from other popular websites such as Second Life is that content portraying violence, drugs, sexual references or profanity is not allowed.
Offset disarray
UN suspends leading carbon-offset firm : Nature News
As international climate talks began last week in Poland, the United Nations (UN) suspended the work of the main company that validates carbon-offset projects in developing countries, sending shockwaves through the emissions-trading business....
At its meeting on 28 November in Poznań, the CDM's executive board temporarily withdrew Det Norske Veritas's accreditation after a spot check carried out in early November at the firm's headquarters revealed serious flaws in project management.The board did not specify which projects are affected, but cites problems with the company's internal auditing processes, and says that one of its staff members was verifying CDM projects without proper qualifications. As a result, "validation activities could not be demonstrated to be based on appropriate sectoral expertise", the board reports.
Det Norske Veritas is a risk-assessment and consulting company with about 8,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Its 2007 revenue was 8 billion Norwegian krone (US$1.1 billion)
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
More Kyoto criticism
Kyoto is worthless (and you don't have to be a sceptic to believe that now) - Dominic Lawson, - The Independent
Lawson makes some good sounding points about the EU faith in Kyoto, and none of them are encouraging. Here's a key section:
Lawson makes some good sounding points about the EU faith in Kyoto, and none of them are encouraging. Here's a key section:
This fabricated market in carbon has at its heart the UN's Clean Development Mechanism. This is how the EU, which had an obligation under Kyoto to reduce its emissions by two per cent by 2012, has managed to claim success while actually increasing its emissions by 13 per cent. By purchasing so called "offsets" from countries such as China, Britain, for example, proclaims itself a "leader in the fight against climate change".
Most of this is entirely fraudulent, in the sense that the Chinese have been paid billions to destroy particular atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which have actually been manufactured in order to be destroyed – and for no other purpose. This is hardly surprising: if something is accorded a price (especially a fixed one) then companies will queue up to produce it.
The EU is inordinately proud of its Emissions Trading Scheme – which it calls "the world's first carbon market" – and it is this scheme which has created the creative accounting scam known as "offsets". Even mortgage-backed securities, the financial instrument at the heart of the credit crunch, at least had something useful – houses – at the bottom of the pile of junk. Some people have described offsets as the carbon market equivalent of the mediaeval sale of Indulgences by the Catholic Church; but as Prof Prins points out, the Church sold them only as a means of atoning for the sins of the past – "carbon offsets" are sold to absolve us from sins in the future, an even more preposterous transaction.
Science, ghosts and ESP
Ghost Stories: Visits from the Deceased: Scientific American
This is an interesting article (and series of comments following) about the quite commonly reported phenomena of people having an experience of the presence of their deceased partner (or even beloved, dead animal.)
According to the post, over 80% of elderly people experience "hallucinations" associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement "as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing." These can be visual, auditory or other experiences.
I did not know that they were so common, but it is a topic of personal interest because my mother reported her own (not very dramatic) experience of this. She told me and her other children, quite some weeks after my father's death, that she had unexpectedly heard his breathing beside her in bed at night. She said it was distinct and clear, and actually a comforting experience. As is typical for these experiences, they did not recur all that often, but felt very "real", and stopped in time.
Many of the people commenting on the above article question (some based on their own experiences) how science can know that these are really hallucinations.
Perhaps the best evidence on the paranormal side is that of crisis apparitions: the well known stories where a person sees someone (usually, but not always, someone close to them) who appears unexpectedly and disappears, with the later discovery that at the time of the experience the person viewed had just died.
These type of apparition greatly interested the early scientists who set up the Society for Physical Research in England in the 19th century, and from the start the question was whether they represented proof of an afterlife, or "only" suggested ESP.
To the mind of nearly all present day scientists, ESP is just as ridiculous idea as belief in the afterlife, so it is still a topic of considerable interest, even if it is one that by its nature is never likely to be open to much in the way of definitive study.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if strong evidence of a repeatable form of ESP was produced. It should, by rights, shake up the scientific establishment to its core; but at the same time, you can imagine the majority of the public shrugging their shoulders and just taking it as confirmation of long held hunches and beliefs based on anecdote and personal experience.
Still, it would be remarkable if it ever occurs.
This is an interesting article (and series of comments following) about the quite commonly reported phenomena of people having an experience of the presence of their deceased partner (or even beloved, dead animal.)
According to the post, over 80% of elderly people experience "hallucinations" associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement "as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing." These can be visual, auditory or other experiences.
I did not know that they were so common, but it is a topic of personal interest because my mother reported her own (not very dramatic) experience of this. She told me and her other children, quite some weeks after my father's death, that she had unexpectedly heard his breathing beside her in bed at night. She said it was distinct and clear, and actually a comforting experience. As is typical for these experiences, they did not recur all that often, but felt very "real", and stopped in time.
Many of the people commenting on the above article question (some based on their own experiences) how science can know that these are really hallucinations.
Perhaps the best evidence on the paranormal side is that of crisis apparitions: the well known stories where a person sees someone (usually, but not always, someone close to them) who appears unexpectedly and disappears, with the later discovery that at the time of the experience the person viewed had just died.
These type of apparition greatly interested the early scientists who set up the Society for Physical Research in England in the 19th century, and from the start the question was whether they represented proof of an afterlife, or "only" suggested ESP.
To the mind of nearly all present day scientists, ESP is just as ridiculous idea as belief in the afterlife, so it is still a topic of considerable interest, even if it is one that by its nature is never likely to be open to much in the way of definitive study.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if strong evidence of a repeatable form of ESP was produced. It should, by rights, shake up the scientific establishment to its core; but at the same time, you can imagine the majority of the public shrugging their shoulders and just taking it as confirmation of long held hunches and beliefs based on anecdote and personal experience.
Still, it would be remarkable if it ever occurs.
Monday, December 08, 2008
A post incapable of witty yet tasteful title
NHS funds 'used to import horse sperm' - The Independent
UPDATE: a quick cartoon of questionable quality by your blogger (you'll have to click to enlarge):
Police are investigating allegations that horse sperm was imported into Britain disguised as human semen for IVF treatment. They are looking at claims that a senior manager in the UK's largest NHS trust diverted NHS funds to buy the horse sperm that was then used to breed mares.And how was this detected? Pretty easily, since I bet it doesn't take hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy overseas human semen, regardless of the IQ of the donors:
NHS trust sources said police were alerted after internal audits revealed an unusual series of large purchases of human semen from overseas suppliers. Invoices said to be worth several hundred thousand pounds had allegedly been created to account for the transactions.I can imagine women who have undergone recent IVF in England feeling just a little queasy at reading the news, but apparently they have nothing to worry about:
They stressed there has been no suggestion of any horse sperm being improperly or inadvertently used in the trust's IVF treatments. Imperial College Healthcare has some of the UK's leading IVF treatment facilities.And, maybe, some of the best criminals too.
UPDATE: a quick cartoon of questionable quality by your blogger (you'll have to click to enlarge):
Today's odd Japanese story
Pink thrills: Japanese sex movies go global | The Japan Times Online
It's not X rated stuff that is being talked about here. Apparently, Japan is one of the few places in the world where soft core porn made on 35 mm film still has a market.
The article is worth reading to see the titles of some of the "pink" features. My favourite would have to be "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn".
It's not X rated stuff that is being talked about here. Apparently, Japan is one of the few places in the world where soft core porn made on 35 mm film still has a market.
The article is worth reading to see the titles of some of the "pink" features. My favourite would have to be "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn".
"Australia" death watch
So, Australia took $7 million in its second weekend in the US, for a total take of $30 million. (It looks like in Australia it might have taken around $8 million?) Still, hard to see it recouping its budget of $130 million, even though it essentially hasn't opened in other markets. (I suspect that there might be some bad but enjoyable reviews yet to come from England.)
Surprisingly, Frank Devine liked it, but is his article's title a pun based on something about Luhrmann that is common knowledge? Actually, Devine seems to like it because it at least looks like a movie, unlike most Australian films. (I think I have posted somewhere here before - although I can't quickly find where - that Australian films often look "empty", in that they just don't have many people on the screen, even in street scenes. Someone wrote at Unleashed recently that most Aussie films look more like television, which I think is pretty much another way of saying the same thing.)
Tim Train has yet to provide a review. Hurry up Tim.
Meanwhile, Martin Ferguson of the strangely untouchable Rudd government is looking increasingly like he blew $40 million on a movie related campaign that is going to get "less bang for our dollar". Talk about understatement. (Actually, was this campaign decided on only after the last Federal election? I would have guessed it would have been a deal worked out earlier than that.)
Surprisingly, Frank Devine liked it, but is his article's title a pun based on something about Luhrmann that is common knowledge? Actually, Devine seems to like it because it at least looks like a movie, unlike most Australian films. (I think I have posted somewhere here before - although I can't quickly find where - that Australian films often look "empty", in that they just don't have many people on the screen, even in street scenes. Someone wrote at Unleashed recently that most Aussie films look more like television, which I think is pretty much another way of saying the same thing.)
Tim Train has yet to provide a review. Hurry up Tim.
Meanwhile, Martin Ferguson of the strangely untouchable Rudd government is looking increasingly like he blew $40 million on a movie related campaign that is going to get "less bang for our dollar". Talk about understatement. (Actually, was this campaign decided on only after the last Federal election? I would have guessed it would have been a deal worked out earlier than that.)
The optimistic Obama
President elect Obama has apparently given an interview in which he talks of encouraging an optimistic view of the future by having science talked about in lectures at the White House:
The main one is that, apart from the fact that the world had just invented the means to destroy itself, and scientists had enabled that, I suspect that in early 60's it was still the scientists as a class who were genuinely optimistic about the future. The possibilities of technology still seemed endless, and environmental catastrophe (apart from the nuclear type) was not a popular concern.
Move ahead only a decade, and scientists became the source of much of the pessimism in the modern world. It's a position I think you can argue they still hold.
Even worse, even if many of the scientists of 60's privately thought that religion was something humanity would soon grow out of, it was not a position they frequently espoused. Of course now they are often active players in a culture war with religion. And it's not just a theoretical matter, as the fight over stem cell research has shown. (Yes, the Islamic inspired aggression is partly to blame for this, but I think issues like stem cell use would have made atheist scientists more aggressive anyway.)
Furthermore, I find it somewhat ironic that Obama should be mentioning talk of "travelling to the stars" when, despite the Apollo project being kicked by Kennedy, it's been Democrats ever since who have cut back on NASA spending. (And it's certainly those on the left who always go on about "what good has the space program ever done for us?")
Getting a sense of optimism from lecturing scientists, and a sense of respect for the religion Obama says he subscribes to, is going to take some very careful selection of visiting lecturers at the White House.
He may also well find that a scientist may be "optimistic" on an issue (such as greenhouse gas emission) in the sense that he or she thinks a problem can be overcome, but only at such a huge cost that Obama will find he just cannot follow the advice politically.
The president-elect said his administration is interested in “elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about.”Sounds very much like emulating the JFK period, and in principle I'm all for encouraging optimism too. But there are a few key differences between the early 1960's and now.
“Thinking about the diversity of our culture and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that once again we appreciate this incredible tapestry that’s America,” he said.
“Historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that sense that better days are ahead,”
The main one is that, apart from the fact that the world had just invented the means to destroy itself, and scientists had enabled that, I suspect that in early 60's it was still the scientists as a class who were genuinely optimistic about the future. The possibilities of technology still seemed endless, and environmental catastrophe (apart from the nuclear type) was not a popular concern.
Move ahead only a decade, and scientists became the source of much of the pessimism in the modern world. It's a position I think you can argue they still hold.
Even worse, even if many of the scientists of 60's privately thought that religion was something humanity would soon grow out of, it was not a position they frequently espoused. Of course now they are often active players in a culture war with religion. And it's not just a theoretical matter, as the fight over stem cell research has shown. (Yes, the Islamic inspired aggression is partly to blame for this, but I think issues like stem cell use would have made atheist scientists more aggressive anyway.)
Furthermore, I find it somewhat ironic that Obama should be mentioning talk of "travelling to the stars" when, despite the Apollo project being kicked by Kennedy, it's been Democrats ever since who have cut back on NASA spending. (And it's certainly those on the left who always go on about "what good has the space program ever done for us?")
Getting a sense of optimism from lecturing scientists, and a sense of respect for the religion Obama says he subscribes to, is going to take some very careful selection of visiting lecturers at the White House.
He may also well find that a scientist may be "optimistic" on an issue (such as greenhouse gas emission) in the sense that he or she thinks a problem can be overcome, but only at such a huge cost that Obama will find he just cannot follow the advice politically.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
The hypno-chooks of Los Angeles
Can keeping backyard chickens really be as entrancing as this Los Anglese Times article reports? (I'm vaguely interested in getting some myself, but being terrorised in the backyard by a rooster when I was a toddler means I'm probably biased when it comes to chicken admiration.)
Here are some extracts:
Here are some extracts:
"I used to think it would be so great to bring the laptop outside and just watch the chickens and work," Knutzen said. "But I can't get anything done when I'm out here because I can't take my eyes off the chickens. They are hypnotic."....UPDATE: this morning while in bed, at about 6 am, I thought I could hear the sound of a chook coming from some neighbour's yard. Mind you, as it is crows, lorikeets and assorted other birds that often wake us up at 4.45 am at this time of year, I can't complain too much about this suspected chicken's timing.
"Bottom line, chickens are a lot of fun," said Dave Belanger, publisher of Backyard Poultry magazine, who has seen subscriptions more than triple since he launched in 2006....
Diehl has been keeping an elaborate blog on her chickens' development and socialization at greenfrieda.blogspot.com.
"I'm kind of obsessed with them," she said. "Chicken people always talk about how chickens are better than TV. You could watch them all day and never get tired of it."
In the New York Times today...
...two op-ed pieces that are worth reading.
One is about the tricky position that white liberals who support gay marriage find themselves in with regard to black Americans, who generally don't accept homosexuality with open arms. This section sounds right to me, even if it is written by a gay marriage supporter:
One is about the tricky position that white liberals who support gay marriage find themselves in with regard to black Americans, who generally don't accept homosexuality with open arms. This section sounds right to me, even if it is written by a gay marriage supporter:
“At some point in our lifetime,” said George Clooney, “gay marriage won’t be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.”The other article is about Republicans and abortion, and goes against the line pushed by more libertarian conservative commentators that abortion as an issue hurt the GOP this last election. Many good points are made, and it is well worth reading.
To the opponents of Proposition 8, this kind of analogy is a rallying cry; but as white Hollywood has recently discovered, to the blacks who voted for the measure, it’s galling. Comparing the infringement on civil rights that gays are experiencing to that suffered by black Americans is to begin a game of “top my oppression” that you’re not going to win. The struggle for equality — beginning with freedom from human bondage (see: references to the book of Exodus at the Gospel Brunch) — has been so central to African-American identity that many blacks find homosexual claims of a commensurate level of injustice frivolous, and even offensive.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Hope it's true
Body art now a big turn off despite celebrity ink, UMR Research shows
Lately, I have been noticing an increasing number of horrendous tattoos in the shopping centres, particularly on women.
God knows I would never defend tattooing on men either, but there are ways in which I can at least semi-rationalise male interest in them. (Men can be dumb, as well as immature and capable of only thinking as far ahead as next weekend; some feel a need to have a quasi-tribal identity, and to "prove" they can handle a degree of pain. But it's also probably a subconscious, artificial extension of the types of male sexual display found throughout nature.)
One would like to think that women are above those considerations, but the female tattoos increasingly on display show I am wrong. Congratulations young women: as with the abuse of alcohol, your feminist emancipation has dragged you down to the level of silly young men, not pulled them up to your level of smarts!
At first, decades ago now, the trend for women's tattoos seemed to be for ones that would be only seen by a lover. I guess that at least had some novelty factor about it, and gave a woman a secret with which to tease a drunk potential lover. (Although, of course, it's not as if said drunk needed that as an excuse to see her undressed anyway.)
But tattooing now appears anywhere on a woman, frequently on the forearms or neck, and is often as inane as anything a male may display. I recently spotted a woman in her late 50's with a blurry mess of ink on her shoulder with "Mum" in the middle. I'm sure her aged mother must have been chuffed.
Chinese characters that mean nothing to anyone viewing them is surely a fashion statement with a very limited life, and again one would have thought that women could think far enough ahead to realise that. Yet that is being spotted increasingly around town too.
Anyhow, the survey linked at the top apparently indicates that 56% of Australian men do not like tattoos on women. The figure rises to 63% for very sensible types (otherwise known as Coalition voters). Half of women feel the same about men's tattoos, which is consistent with my theory about allowances being made for men being men. On average, it seems only 7% actually find them attractive on the opposite sex, with (to some surprise) higher income earners liking them slightly more than those on lower income.
With figures like these you have to wonder why people bother. (Assuming of course that this survey was properly done and has valid results. I note that it did survey people up to the age of 70: it would be more interesting to know the figures just for those under, say, 35.) Here's one way of looking at it: maybe tattooed people are much more likely to only reproduce with a tattooed partner, and then in 15 years time teenage rebellion will mean they fall out of fashion again. Here's hoping.
Lately, I have been noticing an increasing number of horrendous tattoos in the shopping centres, particularly on women.
God knows I would never defend tattooing on men either, but there are ways in which I can at least semi-rationalise male interest in them. (Men can be dumb, as well as immature and capable of only thinking as far ahead as next weekend; some feel a need to have a quasi-tribal identity, and to "prove" they can handle a degree of pain. But it's also probably a subconscious, artificial extension of the types of male sexual display found throughout nature.)
One would like to think that women are above those considerations, but the female tattoos increasingly on display show I am wrong. Congratulations young women: as with the abuse of alcohol, your feminist emancipation has dragged you down to the level of silly young men, not pulled them up to your level of smarts!
At first, decades ago now, the trend for women's tattoos seemed to be for ones that would be only seen by a lover. I guess that at least had some novelty factor about it, and gave a woman a secret with which to tease a drunk potential lover. (Although, of course, it's not as if said drunk needed that as an excuse to see her undressed anyway.)
But tattooing now appears anywhere on a woman, frequently on the forearms or neck, and is often as inane as anything a male may display. I recently spotted a woman in her late 50's with a blurry mess of ink on her shoulder with "Mum" in the middle. I'm sure her aged mother must have been chuffed.
Chinese characters that mean nothing to anyone viewing them is surely a fashion statement with a very limited life, and again one would have thought that women could think far enough ahead to realise that. Yet that is being spotted increasingly around town too.
Anyhow, the survey linked at the top apparently indicates that 56% of Australian men do not like tattoos on women. The figure rises to 63% for very sensible types (otherwise known as Coalition voters). Half of women feel the same about men's tattoos, which is consistent with my theory about allowances being made for men being men. On average, it seems only 7% actually find them attractive on the opposite sex, with (to some surprise) higher income earners liking them slightly more than those on lower income.
With figures like these you have to wonder why people bother. (Assuming of course that this survey was properly done and has valid results. I note that it did survey people up to the age of 70: it would be more interesting to know the figures just for those under, say, 35.) Here's one way of looking at it: maybe tattooed people are much more likely to only reproduce with a tattooed partner, and then in 15 years time teenage rebellion will mean they fall out of fashion again. Here's hoping.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Your weekly ocean acidification news
Comment on "Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World" -- Riebesell et al. 322 (5907): 1466b -- Science
Readers interested in my ocean acidification posts* will recall that there was a big surprise earlier this year when one study suggested that one species of calcifying phytoplankton actually got substantially heavier with more CO2 in the water.
The suggestion was that this may work as an important new CO2 sink, and was quite contrary to previous studies which showed the coccolithophore shells getting smaller with increased ocean acidity.
There was some muttering at the time by other scientists that this study could have been flawed, and now, see the link for a detailed comment by a group of scientists who think they have the problems with the experiment.
The comment is worth reading as setting out the basic issues with acidification and calcification.
Basically, this group still sounds very pessimistic about the "winners" outweighing the "losers" in ocean acidification.
* and who knows if there are any? - no one ever comments on those posts, which just encourages me to continue grinding my teeth about how most of the world is ignoring this issue.
Readers interested in my ocean acidification posts* will recall that there was a big surprise earlier this year when one study suggested that one species of calcifying phytoplankton actually got substantially heavier with more CO2 in the water.
The suggestion was that this may work as an important new CO2 sink, and was quite contrary to previous studies which showed the coccolithophore shells getting smaller with increased ocean acidity.
There was some muttering at the time by other scientists that this study could have been flawed, and now, see the link for a detailed comment by a group of scientists who think they have the problems with the experiment.
The comment is worth reading as setting out the basic issues with acidification and calcification.
Basically, this group still sounds very pessimistic about the "winners" outweighing the "losers" in ocean acidification.
* and who knows if there are any? - no one ever comments on those posts, which just encourages me to continue grinding my teeth about how most of the world is ignoring this issue.
The big questions
Why it's not as simple as God vs the multiverse - New Scientist
How could you resist having a look at an article that covers God, the multiverse, and morality?
(You could? What are you doing here then?)
How could you resist having a look at an article that covers God, the multiverse, and morality?
(You could? What are you doing here then?)
A novel idea
Seawater holds key to future food
Farm plants that grow in salt water (and not just seaweed.)
Farm plants that grow in salt water (and not just seaweed.)
Plants such as sea kale and asparagus-like samphire, which grow along the coast in many countries have been eaten for thousands of years, but it is only recently that their potential has been seen as a substitute for more traditional commercial crops.
In The Netherlands sea kale is now farmed commercially and finds a ready market says Professor Rozema.
Miyazaki talks
An audience with Miyazaki, Japan's animation king | The Japan Times Online
For those who have seen any of Miyazaki's films, this interview is of interest.
(I'm not sure which of his films I would recommend to a new comer to his work. Spirited Away was good, but as with many of his later films, it does become a bit of a narrative jumble as it goes on. I think the simpler story lines of Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service make for a better introduction.)
For those who have seen any of Miyazaki's films, this interview is of interest.
(I'm not sure which of his films I would recommend to a new comer to his work. Spirited Away was good, but as with many of his later films, it does become a bit of a narrative jumble as it goes on. I think the simpler story lines of Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service make for a better introduction.)
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The problems of cap and trade
Carbon Trading: Environmental Godsend or Giant Shell Game? DISCOVER Magazine
A very easy to follow article here on the problems with emissions trading schemes.
A very easy to follow article here on the problems with emissions trading schemes.
Something Islamic and cool
Dezeen - Museum of Islamic Art by I.M. Pei
Mark it on your calendar: this blog today has a post about something Islamic that is also impressive and cool. (Well, at least it's something in an Islamic country, whether or not anyone Islamic can claim that much credit for it is debatable, but let's stop quibbling and get on with it.)
Qatar has a new Museum of Islamic Art, and the architecture, on display in the photos at the above link, looks very impressive.
And yes, I see the architect is I.M. Pei, a Chinese born American. Ha.
Mark it on your calendar: this blog today has a post about something Islamic that is also impressive and cool. (Well, at least it's something in an Islamic country, whether or not anyone Islamic can claim that much credit for it is debatable, but let's stop quibbling and get on with it.)
Qatar has a new Museum of Islamic Art, and the architecture, on display in the photos at the above link, looks very impressive.
And yes, I see the architect is I.M. Pei, a Chinese born American. Ha.
Bad news for Indonesia
Megathrust earthquake could hit Asia 'at any time' - environment - New Scientist
A devastating "megathrust" earthquake could occur at any time off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to new research. Previous quakes have failed to release all of the energy that has built up over hundreds of years, leaving the fault zone vulnerable to another large earthquake.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
An unlikely prospect
12 years to halve UK CO2 - The Independent
Britain should adopt the world's toughest climate change target and slash nearly half of its greenhouse gas emissions in the next 12 years, the Government's new climate advisory committee said yesterday in its first report.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases causing global warming should be cut by 42 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, as long as there is a new global climate deal in a UN meeting in Copenhagen a year from now, said the Committee on Climate Change.
The recommendation for what is a massively ambitious and world-beating target – and a costly one for electricity consumers, who will face higher bills, perhaps of up to £500 a year
An active retirement
Two elderly men arrested for robbing supermarket in Sapporo
Akinori Kawamura, 55, a used goods recycler, and Masanori Hanakawa, 66, unemployed, are suspected of forcing their way into the supermarket after it closed, shooting the manager with a gun and fleeing in a car.
Police said the pair admit to the charge. They were quoted as saying they wanted money to get by and to enjoy a few other things. Police found a modified handgun, four iron bullets, and a large number of fireworks in Kawamura’s home. According to police, Kawamura said he put the gun together and made the bullets himself.
Nothing like taking personal responsibility
So, Andrew Sullivan says of George W Bush: "because he cannot address homophobia and cannot even say the word 'gay' in public or address this issue directly, his legacy in America is actually an increase in HIV transmission".
This is all a bit rich, isn't it, coming for a HIV positive man who, 7 years ago, was actively seeking "bareback" sex?
(Yes, I know, he claims he was only going to have unprotected sex with another HIV positive person, but even that is behaviour not entirely without sexual health consequences.)
What upsets Sullivan is that he (Bush) didn't use the word "gay" in a conversation about HIV. He then goes on about how homophobia amongst blacks being the biggest HIV problem in America.
Funny, I thought the issue was that black men do not identify readily as "gay," and wouldn't assume George was even talking about them if he used the word. How does Sullivan think using the word "gay" is going to work magic within the black community?
By the way, that story from The Nation about Sullivan's dating strategies notes that Sullivan's ad indicated he was also into "bi-scenes" (as well as orgies generally.) I will take this as adding credibility to my personal theory of why Sullivan hates Sarah Palin!
UPDATE: just stumbled across a recent, very detailed, and very explicit, article in Huffington Post which argues that "barebacking" between the HIV positive is almost certainly encouraging mutated, drug resistant strains of HIV. It is very critical of the way the gay community is, to a large extent, taking the view that HIV infection is not such a serious matter now.
This is all a bit rich, isn't it, coming for a HIV positive man who, 7 years ago, was actively seeking "bareback" sex?
(Yes, I know, he claims he was only going to have unprotected sex with another HIV positive person, but even that is behaviour not entirely without sexual health consequences.)
What upsets Sullivan is that he (Bush) didn't use the word "gay" in a conversation about HIV. He then goes on about how homophobia amongst blacks being the biggest HIV problem in America.
Funny, I thought the issue was that black men do not identify readily as "gay," and wouldn't assume George was even talking about them if he used the word. How does Sullivan think using the word "gay" is going to work magic within the black community?
By the way, that story from The Nation about Sullivan's dating strategies notes that Sullivan's ad indicated he was also into "bi-scenes" (as well as orgies generally.) I will take this as adding credibility to my personal theory of why Sullivan hates Sarah Palin!
UPDATE: just stumbled across a recent, very detailed, and very explicit, article in Huffington Post which argues that "barebacking" between the HIV positive is almost certainly encouraging mutated, drug resistant strains of HIV. It is very critical of the way the gay community is, to a large extent, taking the view that HIV infection is not such a serious matter now.
Embed problem?
I'm told that this blog is sending off anti virus warnings for some, and it appears to be related to embedded Youtube. (I actually got a virus warning from a science blog that appears to have no videos on it.)
I use AVG (paid version) and am not having any problems, and it seems not entirely clear whether it is a "real" problem or not.
Still, in the interests of safety, and not annoying people, I'll delete the embeds in the last couple of posts. Maybe they can be re-instated later.
I use AVG (paid version) and am not having any problems, and it seems not entirely clear whether it is a "real" problem or not.
Still, in the interests of safety, and not annoying people, I'll delete the embeds in the last couple of posts. Maybe they can be re-instated later.
More anti-Dubai
Why I'd rather die than visit Dubai | Sathnam Sanghera - Times Online
Most remarkable from the above opinion piece:
Most remarkable from the above opinion piece:
According to the Lonely Planet guide to the city, one British tourist was arrested at Dubai airport and sentenced to four years in prison after 0.03g of cannabis - an amount “smaller than a grain of sugar and invisible to the human eye” - was found on the stub of a cigarette stuck to the sole of his shoe. Meanwhile, a Swiss man was reportedly imprisoned after customs officers found three poppy seeds on his clothes (they had fallen off a bread roll he had eaten at Heathrow), and a British woman was held in custody for two months before customs officers conceded that the codeine that she was using for her back problems had been prescribed by a doctor.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Clever bike
Sanyo to launch new electric hybrid bicycle
Equipped with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, the "eneloop bike" takes the crossover between a normal bicycle and a moped one step further, aiming to tap growing interest in tackling global warming.They need to get rid of the Japanese style shopping basket on the front, though, for it to look cool enough in the West.
The system harnesses energy from braking when the bike goes downhill, and can add extra power equivalent to double the rider's pedal force for going uphill, in line with relaxed government restrictions on such systems.
The eneloop bike can travel 1.8 times faster than conventional bicycles thanks to the motor powering its front wheel, the company said.
Doctors behaving badly
Arrogant, abusive and disruptive — and a doctor - International Herald Tribune
"About 3 to 4 percent of doctors are disruptive, but that's a big number, and they really gum up the works." Experts say the leading offenders are specialists in high-pressure fields like neurosurgery, orthopedics and cardiology.
...every nurse has a story about obnoxious doctors. A few say they have ducked scalpels thrown across the operating room by angry surgeons. More frequently, though, they are belittled, insulted or yelled at — often in front of patients and other staff members — and made to feel like the bottom of the food chain.Interestingly, one researcher blames the way surgeons teach themselves:
Norcross blamed "the brutal training surgeons get, the long hours, being belittled and 'pimped' " — a term for being bombarded with questions to the point of looking stupid. "That whole structure teaches a disruptive behavior," he said.Vast international readership: you can post anonymously here your true life experience with a "disruptive doctor". Everyone likes those stories, don't they?
Tracking down CO2
Carbon Detectives Are Tracking Gases in Colorado - NYTimes.com
Good article explaining the research underway to get a better understanding of where CO2 comes from and goes (otherwise known as the carbon budget):
Good article explaining the research underway to get a better understanding of where CO2 comes from and goes (otherwise known as the carbon budget):
...researchers think about half of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere gets absorbed by oceans and land, but they do not know precisely where the gases come from and where they end up. This knowledge gap has serious policy implications; until it becomes clear where emissions are going, it will remain difficult to have verifiable credits for sequestering carbon.This sounds like it may help a lot:“We need to make sure that carbon markets are affecting climate change, not just putting money in the hands of some companies and people,” said Lisa Dilling, an assistant professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
A vexing challenge is that surface inventory assessments — based on measuring forests, agricultural fields and smokestack emissions, for instance — generally do not agree with atmospheric measurements.
Surprising they haven't had a satellite to do that before now.In January, the next frontier of atmospheric CO2 measuring instruments will begin when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launches the first carbon-scanning satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.
Each day, the satellite will orbit Earth 15 times, taking nearly 500,000 measurements of the “fingerprint” that CO2 leaves in the air between the satellite and Earth’s surface. The data will be used to create a map of CO2 concentrations that will help scientists determine precisely where the sources and sinks are — showing differences in trace gases down to a 1 part per million precision against a background of 380 parts per million CO2 equivalent.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Australia revisited
History in the Making: The Current Cinema: The New Yorker
Damn. The New Yorker had David Denby review "Australia" instead of Anthony Lane. Still, Denby took quite a strong and witty dislike to it, so the result is not too bad.
The previous post here said it was a "spoiler" for the movie, yet it didn't actually deal with how the movie ends. (Oddly enough, over the weekend many people were coming to the post via searches for the movie spoiler.)
For those still interested, the real movie ending appears to be explained here, but David Denby also appears to give it away to a significant degree (and with a killer final line):
Damn. The New Yorker had David Denby review "Australia" instead of Anthony Lane. Still, Denby took quite a strong and witty dislike to it, so the result is not too bad.
The previous post here said it was a "spoiler" for the movie, yet it didn't actually deal with how the movie ends. (Oddly enough, over the weekend many people were coming to the post via searches for the movie spoiler.)
For those still interested, the real movie ending appears to be explained here, but David Denby also appears to give it away to a significant degree (and with a killer final line):
At the end, King George summons Nullah to a rite of passage, a walkabout. Nullah’s disappearance into the desert, leaving the whites behind, is framed as a triumphant anti-colonial moment, but Luhrmann confuses the issue by accompanying the scene with, of all things, the stirring “Nimrod” passage from “Enigma Variations,” by Edward Elgar, the composer perhaps most closely associated with the glories of empire. With the same degree of appropriateness, Luhrmann might celebrate Barack Obama’s Inauguration with a thundering rendition of “Dixie.”If it weren't 3 hours long, I would be tempted to see to confirm my suspicion as to how bad I would find it. But life is too short for that. And in any event, it can almost certainly be written off as a box office flop, and will be making an appearance in the DVD rental shop sooner than they expected.
Always their fault
Egypt's Jew Haters Deserve Ostracism in the West - WSJ.com
Good article here about how even the supposedly liberal part of Egyptian media runs stories blaming the Jews for everything.
Good article here about how even the supposedly liberal part of Egyptian media runs stories blaming the Jews for everything.
The Independent should expect letters
The kindest cut: How circumcision is the secret weapon in the battle against HIV/Aids - The Independent
Here's a long article about the success of circumcision in Africa as a preventive step to dramatically reduce HIV transmission:
Here's a long article about the success of circumcision in Africa as a preventive step to dramatically reduce HIV transmission:
Flooding Africa with condoms and trying to change sexual behaviour has had little demonstrable impact. Research on an Aids vaccine has foundered and an effective microbicide is still not in sight.What's the bet that this will still not satisfy the very strange anti-circumcision movement, the believers in which will no doubt be writing letters to The Independent this very minute.The toll from the disease is staggering – an estimated 33 million people infected with HIV, and 25 million dead. Even more alarming, however, is that new infections are growing by 2.7 million a year, outnumbering the annual two million deaths. For every two people put on drug treatment, five more become infected.
Against this litany of despair there is now, for once, a message of hope – a chance of curbing, and even reversing, the epidemic. Circumcision, if rolled out across the continent, offers the first real prospect of saving lives by preventing infection on a significant scale. Estimates suggest that if universal circumcision were introduced across sub-Saharan Africa, it could prevent 300,000 deaths in the next 10 years and three million deaths over the next 20 years. It is sometimes described as a "surgical vaccine" – with good reason.
Overexposed
Jamie Oliver to launch own magazine | Media | guardian.co.uk
I suppose I didn't mind watching a bit of Jamie Oliver's shows when he was new, but they became increasingly irritating over time. Although I don't watch him deliberately anymore, I still see enough from time to time to know what he's up to.
First it was all those happy music end scenes of the "mates over for lunch" in his London pad that grated (a feature of Nigella Lawson's shows too,) then the soap opera of his wife not liking the press making up stories, and the saintly fights to improve British school food. Recently, he did a series in which he showed Italian monks how to enjoy life again (while swearing and going on about some domestic drama about whether his wife was really going to turn up or not), and the latest seemed mainly to be about how good he was at growing his own vegetables.
Now, believe it or not, he is going to publish his own bi-monthly magazine.
I am just waiting for his new movie to be announced.
I suppose I didn't mind watching a bit of Jamie Oliver's shows when he was new, but they became increasingly irritating over time. Although I don't watch him deliberately anymore, I still see enough from time to time to know what he's up to.
First it was all those happy music end scenes of the "mates over for lunch" in his London pad that grated (a feature of Nigella Lawson's shows too,) then the soap opera of his wife not liking the press making up stories, and the saintly fights to improve British school food. Recently, he did a series in which he showed Italian monks how to enjoy life again (while swearing and going on about some domestic drama about whether his wife was really going to turn up or not), and the latest seemed mainly to be about how good he was at growing his own vegetables.
Now, believe it or not, he is going to publish his own bi-monthly magazine.
I am just waiting for his new movie to be announced.
A failed suppression continues
Speaking of climate change, I am not the first to note this, but there continues to be a hell of lot of articles in the Australian press lately by warming skeptics complaining that their dissent is being suppressed.
It's starting to remind me of lefties complaining of suppression of dissent under the Howard government's sedition laws. It all has a bit of a Monty Python air about it, claiming suppression when everyone with ears in fact can hear what they are saying.
If their complaint is that they can't get published in peer reviewed journals, a large number of the vocal skeptics simply don't work directly in the field of climate research anyway. (Geologists are unduly represented, and while part of their knowledge is relevant to the big picture, I still wouldn't expect that they would be particularly knowledgable about studying what is happening in the atmosphere and oceans right now.)
The people at Real Climate have noticed this upswing in skeptic confidence too, and refer people to their Wiki as a resourse for information addressing the skeptic's arguments.
While my argument is that it is not even necessary to have a position on warming in order to believe that strong action on CO2 is warranted (due to ocean acidification,) I must say that I increasingly find the warming skeptics position irritating, in that they just ignore the reasonably put rebuttals by the climate scientists. (Real Climate has nearly always taken a moderate tone, in my opinion, although this latest post indicates that they are really just getting tired of being nice to skeptics.)
I'll give the skeptics the point that media reporting greatly favours any "alarmist" news, but this is not really something that affects the actual science. I am even happy enough to see a wildly inaccurate claim by Tim Flannery, for example, to be held up for ridicule by Tim Blair, but people shouldn't forget that he is just like the geologist skeptics in that there was never any reason to take his opinion particularly seriously anyway.
It is also true, as John Quiggin has noted, that being a conservative blogger who wants to see action on greenhouse gases is a very lonely position in Australia. It is actually very annoying to agree with Andrew Bolt's reading of federal politics about 90% per cent of the time, but then to find that he just runs with any skeptical argument on greenhouse gases and shows no sign of independently looking at the counterarguments.
It increasingly seems to me that many skeptics are now taking just as "religious" view of the issue as the Greens, with(for example), their belief that there is a vast quasi-conspiracy of climate scientists keeping quiet about the "truth" in order to keep their funding going.
Unfortunately though, it is the skeptic faith that seems likely to the one which is going to cause real problems for future generations.
It's starting to remind me of lefties complaining of suppression of dissent under the Howard government's sedition laws. It all has a bit of a Monty Python air about it, claiming suppression when everyone with ears in fact can hear what they are saying.
If their complaint is that they can't get published in peer reviewed journals, a large number of the vocal skeptics simply don't work directly in the field of climate research anyway. (Geologists are unduly represented, and while part of their knowledge is relevant to the big picture, I still wouldn't expect that they would be particularly knowledgable about studying what is happening in the atmosphere and oceans right now.)
The people at Real Climate have noticed this upswing in skeptic confidence too, and refer people to their Wiki as a resourse for information addressing the skeptic's arguments.
While my argument is that it is not even necessary to have a position on warming in order to believe that strong action on CO2 is warranted (due to ocean acidification,) I must say that I increasingly find the warming skeptics position irritating, in that they just ignore the reasonably put rebuttals by the climate scientists. (Real Climate has nearly always taken a moderate tone, in my opinion, although this latest post indicates that they are really just getting tired of being nice to skeptics.)
I'll give the skeptics the point that media reporting greatly favours any "alarmist" news, but this is not really something that affects the actual science. I am even happy enough to see a wildly inaccurate claim by Tim Flannery, for example, to be held up for ridicule by Tim Blair, but people shouldn't forget that he is just like the geologist skeptics in that there was never any reason to take his opinion particularly seriously anyway.
It is also true, as John Quiggin has noted, that being a conservative blogger who wants to see action on greenhouse gases is a very lonely position in Australia. It is actually very annoying to agree with Andrew Bolt's reading of federal politics about 90% per cent of the time, but then to find that he just runs with any skeptical argument on greenhouse gases and shows no sign of independently looking at the counterarguments.
It increasingly seems to me that many skeptics are now taking just as "religious" view of the issue as the Greens, with(for example), their belief that there is a vast quasi-conspiracy of climate scientists keeping quiet about the "truth" in order to keep their funding going.
Unfortunately though, it is the skeptic faith that seems likely to the one which is going to cause real problems for future generations.
Complicated oceans
North Atlantic cold-water sink returns to life : Nature News
Here's the opening paragraph from the above report:
Here's the opening paragraph from the above report:
Scientists have found evidence that convective mixing in the North Atlantic, a mechanism that fuels ocean circulation and affects Earth's climate, has returned after a decade of near stagnation – thanks, perhaps, to a dramatic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic during the summer of 2007.From a global warming/greenhouse gas point of view, this appears to be good news. Certainly, the oceans are proving remarkably complicated to understand, probably because they are huge and hence hard to study:
(And by the way, I don't know that this has much influence on the issue of ocean acidification as a concern.)Reduced convection should in theory weaken the entire Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) — responsible for carrying warm tropical water northwards — with far-reaching consequences for Earth's climate. But so far at least, scientists have not observed any significant changes to that large-scale circulation. Findings published in 2005 that seemed to indicate a big slowing of the MOC were later found to be in the range of natural fluctuations (see 'Ocean circulation noisy, not stalling').
One reason, says Fischer, is that the observational basis is still thin. The Argo programme, a global array of 3,000 robots that measure temperature, salinity and water pressure, has only last year become fully operational, for example.
But already it's clear that the response of the Atlantic Ocean circulation to high-latitude changes is much more complex than has been assumed.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Innovative team building activities
The art of the toilet in Japan
Yeah, I've gone on enough about the wonderful clever toilets of Japan. That's not why I've linked to the article, it's this part:
Yeah, I've gone on enough about the wonderful clever toilets of Japan. That's not why I've linked to the article, it's this part:
Japanese people do not see cleaning as a demeaning or shameful job....Recently, I visited a small technology company in Osaka. The president, Mr Sugimoto, is trying to inspire his staff to work harder as recession takes hold.
He is noted for his drive and enthusiasm and that came across in a punchy presentation which he showed me on his laptop.It included photographs of his staff on their knees scrubbing the urinals.
His point was that in preparation for a new project, the whole team had mucked in to clean up the workplace and this was clearly a source of pride to be included in the company's publicity.
Sad to say that in Australia you would have the newly invigorated ACTU interfering with such innovative team building exercises.*
* Just trying to be silly: no one should take it as sarcasm indicating any particularly sympathetic attitude to unions in Australia.Modern policing
How to calm binge drinkers: get them all blowing bubbles
In England, a novel idea in babysitting. (Sorry, make that policing):
In England, a novel idea in babysitting. (Sorry, make that policing):
I don't get it. Will these bubble blowers come with a little bottle of detergent too? If so, how many fights will be started by some drunk bumping another and causing detergent to get in the eyes?Drinkers will be encouraged to play with children's bubble blowers instead of picking fights, in a scheme to start next month in Bolton. Police will hand out the free toys as young people pour out of pubs and clubs in typically boisterous mood.
But the initiative has been condemned as a 'nursery school gimmick' and a waste of taxpayers' money. The blue and orange bubble blowers, which double as pens, will be handed out by police community support officers and town centre ambassadors on Saturday nights. Elaine Sherrington, a Bolton councillor, said: 'They are a great idea to keep things light-hearted. Revellers will have something fun to focus on as they leave pubs and clubs.
Are the Japanese noticing?
Faroe islanders told to stop eating 'toxic' whales - New Scientist
The Faroe Islands got a mention here earlier this year, when Foreign Correspondent ran a story about them. (The direct link is here.)
Their whale eating habits will have to change, though:
The Faroe Islands got a mention here earlier this year, when Foreign Correspondent ran a story about them. (The direct link is here.)
Their whale eating habits will have to change, though:
Chief medical officers of the Faroe Islands have recommended that pilot whales no longer be considered fit for human consumption, because they are toxic - as revealed by research on the Faroes themselves.
The remote Atlantic islands, situated between Scotland and Iceland, have been one of the last strongholds of traditional whaling, with thousands of small pilot whales killed every year, and eaten by most Faroese....
But today in a statement to the islanders, chief medical officers Pál Weihe and Høgni Debes Joensen announced that pilot whale meat and blubber contains too much mercury, PCBs and DDT derivatives to be safe for human consumption."It is with great sadness that this recommendation is provided," they said. "The pilot whale has kept many Faroese alive through the centuries."
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The curse of Saturday night TV, and songs of previous decades
Saturday night from 10pm has been the dead zone of Australian television since about, I don't know, the invention of television.
Having children of a certain age means few outings at that time currently, and once again I am facing the problem that television assumes that its potential audience is either oldies who are already in bed by 9.30pm, or youngsters who are out on the town or already having sex. (I say "once again" because, while single in the 1990's, it was not all that uncommon to find me sponging a Saturday night dinner from married friends, which would end with us channel surfing and noting how there was absolutely nothing worth viewing - even with cable.)
About the only times I can remember Saturday night TV being something to look forward to was when the ABC ran (I think) D Generation in a fairly late night timeslot (or was it another show from the same Working Dog group?) It would appear that this was in 1986 and 1987. Mark those years down as possibly the only ones this nation will ever see for fresh comedy on a Saturday night. (Well, Mick Molloy made his disastrous forays with his own show on a Saturday too, I think, but the less said about them the better.)
Still, I must admit that I am now quite taken with Rockwiz on SBS. (It provides 40 minutes of entertainment til 10pm at least.) You probably have to be in your 40's to enjoy it, being mainly based on nostalgia for music from the 80's and 90's, but it is terribly good natured, and it's hard not to like Julia Zemiro's as host.
Speaking of songs of previous decades, I was surprised to see an article on Lisa Loeb in The Japan Times today. As far as I knew she was a one hit wonder, and while it appears that she's had nothing approaching the huge success of her first single ("Stay"), she has managed to make a career out of music after all. Oddly, she's had some success with songs for children, although it would appear from her Wikipedia entry (and this), that she may be an example of the modern young woman who dawdles in semi-committed relationships so long that they never get around to having children. (I could be wrong here, but it sounds as if she has no kids.)
Anyhow, like millions of others, I really liked "Stay," and how can any male resist her cute, vulnerable, librarian vibe in the video clip? (Well, maybe rugby league players can, with their more lurid sexual fantasies and realities than mine, but we can't all be into toilet trysts.)
Loeb looks like the Anti-Winehouse, or Anti-Madonna if you like. (By the way, I wouldn't even recognise a Winehouse song if I heard one on the radio; I only know of her due to the appalling tatts and druggie look.) It's been ages since I've seen Loeb's cheap but charming video, but here we go. Enjoy:
Deleted due to virus warning - may be back later
Having children of a certain age means few outings at that time currently, and once again I am facing the problem that television assumes that its potential audience is either oldies who are already in bed by 9.30pm, or youngsters who are out on the town or already having sex. (I say "once again" because, while single in the 1990's, it was not all that uncommon to find me sponging a Saturday night dinner from married friends, which would end with us channel surfing and noting how there was absolutely nothing worth viewing - even with cable.)
About the only times I can remember Saturday night TV being something to look forward to was when the ABC ran (I think) D Generation in a fairly late night timeslot (or was it another show from the same Working Dog group?) It would appear that this was in 1986 and 1987. Mark those years down as possibly the only ones this nation will ever see for fresh comedy on a Saturday night. (Well, Mick Molloy made his disastrous forays with his own show on a Saturday too, I think, but the less said about them the better.)
Still, I must admit that I am now quite taken with Rockwiz on SBS. (It provides 40 minutes of entertainment til 10pm at least.) You probably have to be in your 40's to enjoy it, being mainly based on nostalgia for music from the 80's and 90's, but it is terribly good natured, and it's hard not to like Julia Zemiro's as host.
Speaking of songs of previous decades, I was surprised to see an article on Lisa Loeb in The Japan Times today. As far as I knew she was a one hit wonder, and while it appears that she's had nothing approaching the huge success of her first single ("Stay"), she has managed to make a career out of music after all. Oddly, she's had some success with songs for children, although it would appear from her Wikipedia entry (and this), that she may be an example of the modern young woman who dawdles in semi-committed relationships so long that they never get around to having children. (I could be wrong here, but it sounds as if she has no kids.)
Anyhow, like millions of others, I really liked "Stay," and how can any male resist her cute, vulnerable, librarian vibe in the video clip? (Well, maybe rugby league players can, with their more lurid sexual fantasies and realities than mine, but we can't all be into toilet trysts.)
Loeb looks like the Anti-Winehouse, or Anti-Madonna if you like. (By the way, I wouldn't even recognise a Winehouse song if I heard one on the radio; I only know of her due to the appalling tatts and druggie look.) It's been ages since I've seen Loeb's cheap but charming video, but here we go. Enjoy:
Deleted due to virus warning - may be back later
At last...
IR reforms asking for trouble | The Australian
Finally, Paul Kelly finds something about which to actually criticise the Rudd government. (It's the new, union-enhancing IR laws.)
Maybe these laws signal the end of many in industry cuddling up to this Labor government. (My pet theory is that so many of them have become used to not dealing with unions that have forgotten how intrusive they can be.) The laws are also coming at exactly the wrong time in the economic cycle.
Let's see what happens.
Finally, Paul Kelly finds something about which to actually criticise the Rudd government. (It's the new, union-enhancing IR laws.)
Maybe these laws signal the end of many in industry cuddling up to this Labor government. (My pet theory is that so many of them have become used to not dealing with unions that have forgotten how intrusive they can be.) The laws are also coming at exactly the wrong time in the economic cycle.
Let's see what happens.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Of little interest soon
Can't we hold torturers accountable and still find out the truth? - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
By the sounds of this article, an Obama administration is not going to try to prosecute Bush administration figures over their involvement in counterterrorism policies. (Assuming that they even can if the expected presidential pardons are made.)
They will instead hold a 9/11 style commission.
This prospect annoys many liberals as being too soft on Bush and co, but surely they should see that if indeed Obama is "tested" by more terrorism against Americans (and the Indian attacks are giving us a taste of this), public interest in how many people might have faced a waterboard under a Bush administration is going to be very, very low. (There is also going to be the distraction of a very severe recession.)
In other terrorism related stuff, John Quiggin takes the opportunity to make a statement of the obvious about a phrase which I thought had long gone out of use by all but the most stupid anyway:
By the sounds of this article, an Obama administration is not going to try to prosecute Bush administration figures over their involvement in counterterrorism policies. (Assuming that they even can if the expected presidential pardons are made.)
They will instead hold a 9/11 style commission.
This prospect annoys many liberals as being too soft on Bush and co, but surely they should see that if indeed Obama is "tested" by more terrorism against Americans (and the Indian attacks are giving us a taste of this), public interest in how many people might have faced a waterboard under a Bush administration is going to be very, very low. (There is also going to be the distraction of a very severe recession.)
In other terrorism related stuff, John Quiggin takes the opportunity to make a statement of the obvious about a phrase which I thought had long gone out of use by all but the most stupid anyway:
As the cycle of war and terror has gone on, it’s become increasingly clear that the kind of easy evasion involved in slogans like “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” is no more tenable than the bogus arguments for war put forward by Bush and his followers.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Spoiler warning: Australia
Being allergic as I am to all Australian movies, it seems a fair assumption that "Australia" would cause a breakout of hives even if I walk past the cinema door while it's playing.
There is no doubt at all that many Australian critics are giving it an extra star or so just for being a large scale film by Baz Luhrmann; a director who, although married, has always seemed to display a "gay sensibility" in his movies. (He works in "operatic style" is how they put it on At the Movies last night, where both critics spent a lot of time on the faults but still ended up giving it 3 1/2 stars each.)*
Anyhow, apart from every review, whether good or bad, agreeing that the film is riddled with cliche, there is no doubt that the way the film deals with aborigines is going to attract a lot of derision from some quarters. This will be well deserved if these comments by Roger Ebert (who liked the film overall, but his judgment is wildly erractic) are anything to go by:
* well it took a couple of attempts with different search terms, but it would appear that Luhrmann has not only admitted to a gay sensibility, but to active bisexuality.
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt points out Luhrmann's blatant dishonestly in one key plot point in the film. I wonder if this was co-writer Richard Flanagan's idea? Here he is, going on in great seriousness about the film.
There is no doubt at all that many Australian critics are giving it an extra star or so just for being a large scale film by Baz Luhrmann; a director who, although married, has always seemed to display a "gay sensibility" in his movies. (He works in "operatic style" is how they put it on At the Movies last night, where both critics spent a lot of time on the faults but still ended up giving it 3 1/2 stars each.)*
Anyhow, apart from every review, whether good or bad, agreeing that the film is riddled with cliche, there is no doubt that the way the film deals with aborigines is going to attract a lot of derision from some quarters. This will be well deserved if these comments by Roger Ebert (who liked the film overall, but his judgment is wildly erractic) are anything to go by:
Luhrmann is rightly contemptuous of Australia's "re-education" policies; he shows Nullah taking pride in his heritage and paints the white enforcers as the demented racists they were. But "Australia" also accepts aboriginal mystical powers lock, stock and barrel, and that I think may be condescending.Amongst the bad reviews that are out there (it scores a 51% on Rottentomatoes), I like the start to the one by Dana Stevens in Slate:
Well, what do you believe? Can the aboriginal people materialize wherever they desire? Become invisible? Are they telepaths? Can they receive direct guidance from the dead? Yes, certainly, in a spiritual or symbolic sense. But in a literal sense? Many of the plot points in "Australia" depend on the dead King George's ability to survey events from mountaintops and appear to Nullah to point the way. The Australians, having for decades treated their native people as subhuman, now politely endow them with godlike qualities. I am not sure that is a compliment. What they suffered, how they survived, how they prevailed and what they have accomplished, they have done as human beings, just as we all must.
The film is filled with problems caused by its acceptance of mystical powers. If Nullah is all-seeing and prescient at times, then why does he turn into a scared little boy who needs rescuing?
It's a mystery to me how Baz Luhrmann continues to be regarded as a director worth following. A long time has passed since I've regarded his lush, loud, defiantly unsubtle output with anything but dread.As for the aboriginal content, she writes:
I guess I don't know enough about Australian racial politics to opine at length on this movie's vision of its aboriginal characters, but I will say that if my people were subjected to this simultaneously idealizing and condescending "magical Negro" treatment, I would seriously consider aiming a boomerang at Baz Luhrmann's head.I certainly hope Anthony Lane writes the New Yorker review: I can imagine him being very witty about this.
* well it took a couple of attempts with different search terms, but it would appear that Luhrmann has not only admitted to a gay sensibility, but to active bisexuality.
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt points out Luhrmann's blatant dishonestly in one key plot point in the film. I wonder if this was co-writer Richard Flanagan's idea? Here he is, going on in great seriousness about the film.
The Indian attacks
Analysis: a new tactic by Islamist militants - Times Online
Some early analysis here, which also discusses more broadly the range of terrorist groups and issues within India.
Some early analysis here, which also discusses more broadly the range of terrorist groups and issues within India.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Too much information: the Dutch method
Sex education: why the British should go Dutch - Times Online
Well, if all of this article is correct, the famous Dutch openness in sex education is enough to make every Australian parent I know squirm:
The article becomes less salacious when it starts discussing the other social reasons why teen pregnancy is not so common there, and oddly enough, these are consistent with a more conservative ideology:
Well, here's hoping that its possible to have the social change of kids believing that it's dumb to have sex too early, but without the addition of masturbation videos for 9 year olds.
Well, if all of this article is correct, the famous Dutch openness in sex education is enough to make every Australian parent I know squirm:
Next year, 12-year-old Sasha explains to me, they will learn how to put a condom on a broomstick (she says this without a trace of embarrassment, just a polite smile). Across the city, nine-year-old Marcus, who lives in a beautiful 18th-century house on a canal, has been watching a cartoon showing him how to masturbate. His sister, 11, has been writing an essay on reproduction and knows that it is legal for two consenting 12-year-olds to make love. Her favourite magazine, Girls, gives advice on techniques in bed, and her parents sometimes allow her to stay up to see a baby being born on the birthing channel.Such mind-boggling openness is what is often credited for the remarkably low teen pregnancy and abortion rate in the country. And it's not that they are having "safe sex" early either: they actually start much later on average too.
Then there is Yuri, 16, who explains to me in perfect English that “anal sex hurts at the beginning but if you persevere it can be very pleasurable”. When I ask whether he is gay, he says “no” but he has watched a documentary on the subject with his parents.
The article becomes less salacious when it starts discussing the other social reasons why teen pregnancy is not so common there, and oddly enough, these are consistent with a more conservative ideology:
Another reason why the teenage pregnancy rate is so low may be that in the Netherlands there is still a stigma attached to having a child before the age of 20. In Britain, a baby who can offer unconditional love, a free home away from parents and a cheque every month is not considered a disaster for a teenage girl. The Dutch Government still penalises single mothers under 18, who are expected to live with their parents if they become pregnant. Until six years ago the Government gave them no financial support. ...The other reason given is that families are closer because they are somewhat similar to the much derided ideal of a 1950's Australian nuclear family:
Braeker was shocked when she first came to Britain. “Young girls here seem to have babies to prove that they are adults. In the Netherlands it would just prove how uneducated and naive you are,” she says. “There you can have a boy as a friend, here it's almost always about sex.”
Dutch children are five times less likely to be living in a family headed by a lone parent, divorce rates are far lower and fewer mothers are in full-time employment.Mind you, we then veer into the hard-to-believe openness again:“I think my eight-year-old son has probably learnt more about sex from David Attenborough than from school,” she says. “It is the family that makes the difference. Parents leave the office by 5pm in Holland and eat dinner with their children at 6pm. They then watch TV or play sport together, so they tend to be closer to their children and can guide them to do the right thing.”
Trudie, a fashion stylist, has always talked about sex with her daughter. When, at 16, her daughter asked her what sperm looked like, Trudie asked her husband to provide a sample.Bloody hell, whatever happened to having a couple of mice in a cage to teach the kids about reproduction?
Well, here's hoping that its possible to have the social change of kids believing that it's dumb to have sex too early, but without the addition of masturbation videos for 9 year olds.
Obama and FOCA
Obama's threat to Catholic hospitals and their very serious counterthreat. - Slate Magazine
Here's a good article on the issue of Obama, the highly contentious Freedom of Choice Act, and the Catholic Church's threat to close hospitals if it goes through.
I reckon Obama will secretly be hoping that there are enough Democrats in Congress with reservations to prevent it getting through, so that he doesn't have to sign it after all.
Here's a good article on the issue of Obama, the highly contentious Freedom of Choice Act, and the Catholic Church's threat to close hospitals if it goes through.
I reckon Obama will secretly be hoping that there are enough Democrats in Congress with reservations to prevent it getting through, so that he doesn't have to sign it after all.
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