Why defend emissions trading?

An argument for emissions trading at John Quiggin

I don't understand why an economist on the left of politics like John Quiggin is still arguing for an emissions trading scheme as being preferable to a carbon tax.

Surely, the recent experience of financial markets ought to make anyone very cautious about a proposed new scheme which is welcomed by those who can see that there is money to be made in a potential novel market. I expected it would make Labor types especially skeptical.

In the post linked above, Professor Quiggin argues boldly that the recent collapse in the price of the European emissions permits is not a warning against using ETS:

Most commentators have seen this as a strike against emissions trading, but actually it’s a positive. The big concern about price uncertainty arises when we are very uncertain about the cost of reducing emissions. Under cost uncertainty, setting the emissions target too low could impose unexpectedly high costs on the economy.

What’s happening here is that we are uncertain about the rate of growth of the economy. An emissions target is countercyclical since it imposes a relatively high cost when the economy is strong, and a much smaller cost when the economy is weak. This is a Good Thing.

There are many comments following which contest that view, and I find some of them very convincing. TerjeP argues, for example:

If the focus of the carbon emission policy is to reduce carbon emissions by ushering in new energy technology then the key business sector that needs price certainty from a carbon tax is the renewable base load energy sector. They are after all the ones in need of new capital and who must persuade investors and bankers that things will work out as planned.....

However dealing with the volatile carbon price that an ETS would deliver makes investment in such unproven high risk commercialisation a far less certain venture.

And besides which: doesn't a hell of a lot depend on whether the US goes down the ETS path as well? If Obama actually goes for a carbon tax, wouldn't it be wise to follow?

UPDATE: How convenient. Penny Wong has column space in the Australian this morning in which she explains why an ETS is preferable to a carbon tax. Her key point:

Arguments around the merits of emissions reductions policies can be complex, but the core explanation for why emissions trading is superior to a carbon tax is simple. A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions. A cap-and-trade scheme does.

Delivering a target is a key part of domestic and international efforts to reduce carbon pollution.

Cap and trade gives us certainty that targeted reductions will occur, whereas a carbon tax gives no guarantee over the quantity of reductions. Under a cap-and-trade scheme, the government issues permits for each tonne of carbon up to the total cap. Under a carbon tax, the government needs to estimate how emissions levels would respond to a carbon tax rate, introducing uncertainty about whether the target would be reached.

But Penny: that assumes that the ETS actually works. She claims:

Emissions trading gives businesses and the community more certainty.....While the carbon price will fluctuate under a cap-and-trade model, there is a capacity for firms to use market instruments to help manage movement in the carbon price.

Yes, market instruments have been working so well, lately. (Disengage sarcasm mode.)

More Wong claims:

Emissions trading opens up the prospect of sharing the burden of reducing emissions with other countries through linking the CPRS to schemes overseas. A carbon tax would take Australia out of this emerging international market.

But problems with the credibility of credits claimed for reductions in other countries has been one of the major issues of the European ETS, hasn't it? And wouldn't common sense suggest that there is always going to be an incentive for businesses engaged in quantifying the effects of overseas mitigation to be biased towards overstating the benefits of schemes? I mean, that keeps all potential customers happy.

I would have thought that one of the benefits of a carbon tax is that you can cut out that part of an ETS and just worry about accurately assessing what is going on in your own country.

Penny doesn't want to wait, though, and that's a worry:

Now is the time for getting on with the job not kicking around theories.

It's not the theories we want discussed, Penny; we're saying it's the practicalities that need to win out over theory.

Investigating methane

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice - Los Angeles Times

The potential for trouble from methane and other carbon being released from thawing Arctic regions is given a bit of an overview in this article. Some disturbing thoughts:

The upper 3 meters -- about 10 feet -- of permafrost stores 1.9 trillion tons of carbon, more than double the amount in the atmosphere today, according to a recent study in the journal Bioscience.

"We are seeing thawing down to 5 meters," says geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska. "A third to a half of permafrost is already within a degree to a degree and a half [Celsius] of thawing."

If only 1% of permafrost carbon were to be released each year, that could double the globe's annual carbon emissions, Romanovsky notes. "We are at a tipping point for positive feedback," he warns, referring to a process in which warming spurs emissions, which in turn generate more heat, in an uncontrollable cycle.

Re-appraising Lewis - again

Film - Hey, Laaaady! Jerry Lewis, the King of Comedy, Finally Gets Recognition From Oscar - NYTimes.com

Here's another article (this time from the other side of the Atlantic) re-appraising Jerry Lewis' career in light of his receiving an award for humanitarian work at this year's Oscars.

I am very curious as to how his acceptance speech will go.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one speculating how badly a Jerry Lewis acceptance speech may go at the Oscars. Will update further once I have seen the real thing.

UPDATE II: Lewis managed to be brief and sincerely appreciative. Congratulations.

Teaching sex

There's a fairly sensible article in The Times, written by a teacher with first hand experience, about the state of sex education in England today. (A certain babyfaced 13 year old father has caused a degree of national reflection on the topic.)

The writer does not sound all that intrinsically conservative, but she notes this oft-repeated concern that conservatives have about sex education:

The non-statutory curriculum for PSHE says, of the sex and relationship component, that “it helps [students] to understand human sexuality and the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”.

Yet so much of PSHE ignores the latter half and focuses instead on how not to fall pregnant or catch a sexually transmitted infection. As one girl said to me recently: “Miss, they’ve been showing us how to put condoms on penises for years, but they never talk to us about relationships or how we choose.” Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.

The danger is that so much information is being blasted at these children on how not to conceive, where to go for help, the dangers of chlamydia, that the implied subtext is that it is all right to experiment with sex whenever you want. The curriculum does say that learning the advantages of delaying sexual activity should form part of the content, but how often is that touched upon?

Her experience when she does try to get a lesson taught in the school emphasising marriage or "stable relationships" is instructive:

I seized on the second part of the general statement about sex and relationships education (“to understand . . . the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”) and designed a lesson on marriage. It was a good lesson. I taught it myself and it generated thoughtful conversation about responsibility and parenthood and such like. But one of the PSHE teachers came to me and refused to teach it.

She said it made her “uncomfortable” and was “not relevant”. I pointed out that “stable relationships” were to be emphasised as much as marriage; no one was to feel uncomfortable, that is the whole point of good PSHE. Still she refused. If parents don’t, and teachers won’t, teach children the basic tenets of moral responsibility, what chance do those children have?

The problem is, I suppose, that it is extremely difficult to teach the benefits of "stable relationships" (or, God forbid, "marriage") without experiencing it directly. How can teachers show kids that there is something better than the patterns of dysfunctional adult relationships they may be watching at home?

Meanwhile, in a report in the same newspaper, the government is issuing a leaflet which will do its whimpy best to discourage young parenthood"

The leaflet suggests that parents should start the “big talk” with children as young as possible, before they pick up “misinformation” from their peers in adolescence. The best way to raise the topic may be while performing mundane tasks such as “washing the car . . . washing up, watching TV, etc”, it says.

The main controversy about the leaflet is that it suggests parents should back off on the 'right and wrong' aspects of the discussion. This is justified by a psychologist as follows:

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said educating older children and teenagers about sex had to be a process of negotiation. “We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines,” she said.

Like that's going to help.

Add that one to the list of movies I just didn't get

So, I finally caught up with The Last Picture Show.

What a dreary, pointless story. As with much European cinema, the story is told competently, but at the end of it I think "why did they think this story was worth telling?"

It's also a severely underpopulated film, similar to most Australian movies, where there just doesn't seem to be enough people on the screen. I know it was meant to be a dying, dead end town, but really, art direction that made the streets look like an absolute ghost town just made it look unrealistic to my eye.

Critics love to hail the American movies of the early 1970's as some sort of artistic highlight of cinema: I reckon they were just mostly depressing, dark movies with few redeeming features.

UPDATE: just thought that is an appropriate place to list some other movies that I "just don't get". (This means I am forever puzzled by their critical and/or commercial success):

1. Forest Gump. Not offended by it; I would rate it as "harmless". But why was such a downer of a silly fairy tale a critical and box office success?

2. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Proof that one catchy song can sway hundreds of millions that they have had a good time during an entire 90 minutes. At least the sequel was a gold plated dud.

3. Pretty Woman. Proof that two attractive stars can make people forget that they are being sold a wildly improbable fairy tale which seems designed to make people feel better about prostitution as an industry or temporary career choice. Offensive.

A viewing recommendation

For a long time, SBS seems to have reserved Friday nights at 8.30 for World War II documentaries, and currently it is running a lengthy series called "Churchill's Bodyguard".

I haven't seen all of it, but what I have seen has been very interesting, and stuffed full of footage that I have either never seen, or only seen briefly, before.

As the title suggests, the series is based on the memoirs of Churchill's long serving bodyguard, so you get a very detailed and intimate view of Churchill's activities and character. (It seems virtually everyone who was close to Churchill has written about it: at a holiday unit some years ago I found an old book by his personal physician who followed him around during WWII as well.)

Last night's episode featured the long and dangerous trip Churchill made in secret to first visit Roosevelt on board a ship in Newfoundland.

It occurred to me while watching it that one of the things that makes WWII so fascinating is that the technology was just at the right level of development for providing drama. It allowed the sort of secret operations and trips that would be impossible today between the major powers. But the rush to develop and perfect new technologies also gave this war a large part of its dramatic character too. You just can't imagine such a scenario ever happening again.

It was also noted in last night's episode that Churchill appeared to believe that supernatural protection was being provided to him to "complete the mission".

(On the other hand, Hitler was lucky to survive as long as he did. Maybe he had infernal protection, and it was all a proxy war. Could be a movie in that!)

Circus denied

Rebel priest defies deadline

What the hell? I get no media circus to watch on the Sunday night news after all.

Father Howell has given up on the idea of trying to get into St Mary's church this weekend, and he and Archbishop Bathersby are going to let ousted priest Peter Kennedy run the show as always.

Howell is quoted as follows:

"I have been a priest for 25 years, and I will not engage in a situation whereby the celebration of the Mass becomes a place of conflict and division.

"I don't believe that anyone would attend this weekend's services with the intention of behaving violently. However, tensions are high, people are upset, and Father Kennedy has urged as many people as possible to attend the service in a spirit of protest."

Father Howell said he remained committed to taking up his position as administrator of St Mary's.

Catholic Archbishop John Bathesby has conceded to enter a mediation with the maverick cleric.

"I believe a sensible next step would be to have an experienced, independent and eminent mediator meet with the archdiocese and Father Kennedy to attempt to achieve a peaceful and dignified outcome to the current impasse. I would strongly urge Father Kennedy to participate in this process," Archbishop Bathersby said.

Hmpff. Kennedy has shown no inclination of budging in his (or "his community's") practices. As far as I can see, mediation will involve him telling the Archbishop that he is wrong.

A physical confrontation at the church is delayed, but I doubt it can be avoided indefinitely.

Next he should look up the meaning of "disingenuous"

As noted a few posts back, "rebel" priest Father Peter Kennedy, now finally officially relieved of his duties, went as far a calling the temporary replacement "a religious scab."

Kennedy is quoted today:

Fr Kennedy said he regretted calling Father Ken Howell, whom Archbishop Bathersby has appointed to take over St Mary's, a "religious scab".

"I looked up the word scab in the dictionary and certainly Ken doesn't fit that , so I apologise for that," he said.

LOL!

Father Ken Howell, meantime, is trying to shame the parish into letting him in by being very, very nice:

Fr Howell, who has invited Fr Kennedy to jointly celebrate all the masses at St Mary's this weekend, said he was disappointed by the remark.

However, he said he thought it was the comment of a man under pressure.

This is on top of comments that he doesn't see that there is a problem with the Gay and Lesbian Choir continuing to use the church.

It's an interesting tactic, but I doubt it is going to work.

Complicated

Carbon Capture Firm Could Use the Ocean to Combat Global Warming

I guess if money and energy are no object, there are lots of ways you can fiddle with the environment:

The study, "Electrochemical Acceleration of Chemical Weathering as an Energetically Feasible Approach to Mitigating Anthropogenic Climate Change," lays out a means of making the ocean more alkaline by reducing its acid content, in a process "equivalent to the electrochemical acceleration of the Earth's natural chemical weathering process."

In essence, the study proposes using electrolysis to convert weaker carbonic acid in the oceans into hydrochloric acid - "the engineered process accelerates the weathering kinetics to industrial rates," the study states. That could speed the rate at which silicate rocks –basalt, granite and other minerals that make up most of the Earth's crust – absorb the acid from the ocean.

"The increase in ocean alkalinity resulting from the removal of HCl causes atmospheric CO2 to dissolve into the ocean where it will be stored primarily as HCO3 without further acidifying the ocean," the study states. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean already, causing it to become more acidic - and that is leading to problems for coral reefs, giant squid and other ocean life, scientists say.

I think I have heard of this before, but not posted about it. Probably because of this:

Undertaking such a vast engineering project would be daunting, to be sure. It's the equivalent of building about 100 plants the size of major sewage treatment facilities to capture about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, the study states.

"Our current estimates indicate that running the process described here at scales sufficiently large to impact the earth's climate is unlikely to be commercially viable in the near future," the study says.

The redundant blogger

Jennifer Marohasy - Gone Fishing

It's hard not be bemused by what happens at Jennifer Marohasy's blog when she disappears for a break. (It's been nearly three weeks now.) The raucous, rarely enlightening, debate by the band of regular commenters just continues unabated.

I can't quite work out whether, as a blogger, Jennifer should feel proud or embarrassed that her blog is almost as active without her as when she is posting.

What a surprise

The Hindu News Update Service notes that:

The Asia Pacific Sexual Health and Overall Wellness (AP SHOW) survey found that men with "suboptimal erections" are less satisfied with sex and other aspects of the sexual experience.

Love that terminology. It makes me want to use at least part of it every day. For example: "Kevin Rudd, our suboptimal PM".

The Taliban concept of "truce"

Pakistani reporter is killed after celebration of truce

A rally to celebrate a day-old peace deal between the government and a hard-line Islamic cleric in the Swat Valley ended ominously Wednesday when a Pakistani television journalist was shot and killed after covering the march.

Fast work

Short works of genius that cheer up the writing profession | The Spectator

A good column from Paul Johnson about the speed with which some famous novels (or plays) have been written.

A bit rich

Why men can't apologise - Times Online

A female "relationships expert" says (citing one example) that men have trouble saying "sorry".

The comments are already flowing in the other direction:

What a stupefyingly assumed, breathtaking generalisation of an entire gender based solely on one person's own prejudices and the singularly thin example of one incident! How do I know this? My girlfiend would rather lose an arm than say sorry!

And it is true that, in my vast range of relationship experience (hahahaha,) one important lesson learnt is that women do not generally feel a need to apologise for things said or done when feeling even slightly hormonally grumpy. Men, on the other hand, are expected to pretty much apologise for everything.

I doubt I am unique in this finding.

Aiming for the easy target

A headline in The Independent today:

Coming to Britain, church with a mission to demonise homosexuals

(It's about the crackpot Westboro Baptist Church, about which even uber gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says "They are such an absurd, fringe, fanatical group that it’s probably best to just ignore them.”)

I could suggest an alternative, more important headline for The Independent:

Already in Britain -Religious leaders who wants homosexuals killed !

Pass the popcorn

Currency Lad has a wry post noting the UFO cult support of soon-to-be-departed St Mary's parish priest Peter Kennedy.

Kennedy's latest rhetoric indicates he truly comes from the ACTU school of diplomacy:

"I intend to have our liturgy at 9am as normal on Sunday morning and there'll be a thousand people there, I'd say.

The people are not going to receive Father Howell. He's naive enough to think he can walk in there on Sunday and the people will welcome him.

Well, they won't. I know the people, I've been there 28 years - the people want me there and I've helped build that community into what it is today.

And then this guy comes in, like a religious scab."

How classy. It would appear that his parish has always been close to the trade unions, and indeed the Trades and Labor Council has offered nearby premises from which to conduct services. (That last linked story indicates that, as of January, Kennedy did not seem overly troubled by the fact that "our community" would seem simply re-locate down the road. Why the change of heart, then?) Peter Kennedy also appears to be getting free advice from union lawyers, as he has apparently mentioned potential "unfair dismissal" action in the industrial courts. What next - legal action about the procedural unfairness in the election of the next Pope?

Speaking of oddball support for the church, I have previously noted the support pledged by perpetual aboriginal activist Sam Watson, following the parish joining the "Sacred Treaty Circle" last November. Problem is, no one seems to know what the "treaty" means.

According to Watson:

...we’ve more or less declared St Mary’s to be a very sacred site to Aboriginal people from right around this area, and we will now defend that.

According to activist Bejam Denis Walker:

Well the treaty is a recognition of our sovereignty under God in country. Something that the Australian government hasn’t realised or recognised, and it fulfils law. Without it, I maintain, people are behaving unlawfully. Essentially it creates a oneness between the Indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous peoples.

Clear? Um, not exactly. At the St Mary's parish blog, there's a link to a new, long open letter to the parish from a West End aboriginal figure Sean a.k.a. John Tracey, complaining that Peter Kennedy had been quoted as saying that the Aboriginal sovereignty asserted in the treaty was a matter of symbolism. Not so, claims Sean:

It seems that perhaps Peter may not have fully understood the treaty he has signed if he considers Aboriginal sovereignty to be legally uncertain and symbolic.

To describe assertions of sovereignty as symbolic directly undermines those assertions.

Bejam has served on the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane a proclamation of Sovereignty and a Notice of Want of Jurisdiction. In international law, Common law, commercial law and Aboriginal customary law these are legitimate and legal statements that can underpin a range of very real court actions relevant to St. Mary’s and beyond. They are not a symbolic ambit claim but a real instrument of law.

Hmm. The (very lengthy) proclamation mentioned above can be read here. The respondents are the Archbishop of Brisbane and Queen Elisabeth II of Australia, basically telling them to both shove off. As for the Church in particular:

...the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed the State and Federal governments and all establishments that uphold and sustain the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, are operating in our Indigenous lands, illegally, and have no jurisdiction to make any decisions regarding the use of our lands/law/culture.

Yet the same letter complains about the lack of apparent support for the treaty process at St Mary's:

In the last month I have attended two meetings at St. Mary’s, called by Bejam to begin the process of assisting “the agenda”. In both cases the meeting was cancelled because nobody from St. Mary’s turned up.

If St. Mary’s remains so busy fighting the Catholic hierarchy or doing business as usual that it does not have the time or headspace to properly deal with the treaty and customary law then it cannot make any claim to being a part of the treaty or customary law process with any integrity, even if they do appropriate the symbols of these things into their own liturgical self identity and their fight with the Catholic hierarchy.

Well well. As I had suspected, aboriginal activists would claim this "treaty" gave them some say as to the future of the parish, or at the very least, the right to occupy the car park in perpetuity. (There has been talk of a tent embassy being established: "a fantastic idea" according to Peter Kennedy.) Yet the parishioners seem to have been too distracted to keep all activists on side.

In another odd aspect of all of this, the new priest being parachuted in from the Cathedral, Father Ken Howell, is quoted today as follows:

Father Howell told The Courier-Mail his propulsion into the spotlight by being appointed to take over St Mary's was "a little daunting".

He looked forward to working with Fr Kennedy and the church community so St Mary's outreach work could continue and to plan liturgies.

He could see no reason why the gay and lesbian choir could not continue to use the church, he said.

Now that's not exactly going to keep conservatives happy. But what will the choir members do? As I expect that many of them may have had their relationships "blessed" by Peter Kennedy, one suspects that most of them will follow him to his new Union home.

This weekend will be a circus at St Mary's, especially on Sunday morning when it appears it will be a case of duelling priests to see which of them is going to conduct Mass, while Sam Watson pitches a tent in the car park, the Raelians spot invisible flying saucers above the Church, and (possibly) fights break out between some of the lesbians. The drama may also be heightened by another fainting spell from Father Kennedy.

Although it is fundamentally a serious issue, I can't help but be entertained as well.

Stop it, Frank

What The Caine Mutiny Can Teach Us about Global Warming Scientists

Ack! Another anti global warming piece by Frank Tipler. (A very lightweight one too, it must be said.)

Have they peaked yet?

Hit & Run: Tattoos - so in they're out - Hit & Run, People - The Independent

Good to see someone in The Independent taking a cynical view of the ubiquity of the tattoo. Bryan Appleyard will be pleased.

Out of curiosity, I saw a brief part of London Ink on some cable channel recently. (God knows what entertainment there is to be found in watching an entire series about a few tattoo artists ruining perfectly good skin.) Anyhow, the bit I saw featured a woman getting a tattoo of a pair of ballerina shoes and a ribbon on her neck. It was so high, the lower part of her hair had to be shaved.

At the end, observing the shoes in the mirror, she expressed delight at how good they looked. She noted that "they will always remind me of ..." I forget what. Her former ballet days maybe.

"What the hell?" I thought. The tattoo is on your neck, woman. It will soon have hair over at least the top part of it, unless you are going to go all Sinaed O'Connor permanently.

Unless you live in a house of mirrors, is it not self evidently dumb to have a tattoo intended to act as an aide-memoire on your back?

Kissing science

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, a biological anthropologist made this observation about kissing:

Lots of hormones are present in differing quantities in our saliva, and they may serve several romantic purposes.

"There's evidence that saliva has testosterone in it, and there's also evidence that men like sloppier kisses with more open mouth," Fisher said. "That suggests to me that they are unconsciously trying to transfer testosterone to trigger the sex drive in women."

It is worth remembering the importance of testosterone to women:

Testosterone has such a distinctive image as the definitive male hormone that it's hard to equate it with the normal sexual functioning of women, says Davis. "Women's bodies manufacture oestrogen from testosterone. Women often feel particularly sexy when they ovulate because that's when their testosterone levels peak. It also contributes to making women feel more confident, positive and motivated. Unfortunately, these qualities are considered to have more value in males in our society. And, as is the case with men, female testosterone levels start to decline in the mid-20s through to natural menopause."

Women should be thanking men for making them feel good. It's our hormone they are using, after all.

A short review by BA

Thought Experiments : The Blog: Benjamin Button

Bryan Appleyard did not think highly of this year's big Oscar contender. Hollywood's great decline continues unabated.

Impressive toy

It's not entirely clear how scary this might feel til you get used to it, but it looks pretty damn impressive:



According to the company's website:

For special applications, future designs could achieve higher altitudes and top speeds, extended range of up to 300 km and even travel both above and below the water´s surface.

I look forward to seeing some new pointless, but kind of fun, exercise like crossing Bass Strait by jet pack, then.

This is modern Art: Part III

The Telegraph reports on an exhibit at the Tate Modern which featured 55 fish. (Not very big ones by the looks.) Trouble is, about a quarter of them died. This was not actually the intention.

You can always trust PETA to go overboard:

"Tropical fish, who were born to forage among brilliantly coloured coral reefs, belong in the deep blue depths of the sea, not suffering a miserable existence in glass tanks in art galleries so that people can gawp at them."

I take it they did not react well, then, to an earlier fish related art controversy:

In 2000, the Chilean artist Marco Evaristti sparked outrage for a work he exhibited at the Trapholt Art Museum in Denmark. The display, entitled Helena, featured 10 blenders containing goldfish. Evaristti said that he wanted people "to do battle with their conscience" so visitors to the exhibition were invited to turn on the blenders. Several of the fish were liquidised which led to the museum director, being charged with, but later acquitted, of animal cruelty.

I wouldn't be happy with a goldfish in a blender exhibit either, but perhaps more on the grounds that it is really stupid art.

About those CO2 levels

Some not very useful reporting by Reuters going on about this topic. Read here for clarification.

Hitchens on talking to Iran

It's worth reading Hitchen's take on this.

Iran reversal

Tigerhawk had an important post recently about the apparent reversal in US intelligence circles about Iran's intentions to build nuclear weapons. They are back to being sure it is being pursued.

Those of us who were skeptical of the 2007 NIE report have a right to feel somewhat vindicated.

All hail the duck

Luv-a-duck make a range of pre-cooked duck products that last for months in the fridge (longer if you freeze it). They also have a website that boasts of the company's "state of the art retail duck showroom at Port Melbourne." I must remember that when next down there.

We recently had a pack of roast duck legs we bought last year and nearly forgotten about. They were just heated up in the little benchtop oven, and served on mashed potato. Fantastic.

Short break needed

I need to spend more time concentrating on work for the next few days.

In a vague attempt to keep people visiting while I try very hard not to read the Internet at all in that period, I have set up some posts to appear in my absence. Nothing too deep, and most are links to stuff that interests me.

Fresh application of my mind to blogging will resume soon.

Troofer fodder

Outspoken widow of 9/11 victim dies aboard another doomed flight | theage.com.au

A tabloid moment

Dad at 13

The pictures at the above link show such a baby faced 13 year old that it is kind of hard to believe he is the father. (He's not taking the rap for someone else, is he?) The mother is his 15 year old "girlfriend". What was she doing playing around with a boy who looks about 10?

UPDATE: I really was too generous in that first post: he could pass for 8 or 9, in all honesty. I see that The Times has a lengthier article about it. In the accompanying video, it shows the school that the girl attends as being "A specialist school for the performing arts." Hmm. Fits in well with my recent run of posts about famous artistic souls and their lack of familiarity with the concept of self restraint. (Of course, I am being very unfair to this girl. Maybe.)

But even worse, is this:

Chantelle said that Alfie had regularly stayed the night.

Hello, parents? Anyone home?

UPDATE 2: I may have been right with my initial doubts that the boy is the father. In a very farcical turn of events, the large amounts of money apparently on offer for the story are almost certainly the reason that 2 other teenagers are happy to claim that they could be the real father, and DNA tests are being suggested. As The Guardian writes:

Small wonder that the News of the World has compared the situation to Channel 4 drama Shameless - only with "the total absence of anything remotely funny".

Not that I find Shameless funny, though.

Pragmatism?

Country pulling in all directions awaits leader | theage.com.au

Jason Koutsoukis gives a good overview of Israeli politics in The Age today, and thinks that even if Benjamin Netanyahu becomes Prime Minister, it's still possible that he will be more pragmatic with the Palestinians than his rhetoric indicates.

But in another article, he also quotes a former Israeli diplomat as saying that Israel is "ready" to launch a military strike on Iran. Netanyahu mentioned Iran in his "victory"speech too.

I bet the Obama White House is sweating over this.

From the archives of the sophisticated European sense of humour

Ananova - Pooping Obama is a best-seller

I'm not sure if this story had much attention when it first came out last December, but it is of cultural interest:

Catalonians traditionally celebrate Christmas by placing a caganer, which translates as pooper, in a nativity scene.

People find it fun to try to spot the tiny defecating figures which are supposed to bring prosperity and a good harvest.

Traditionally, caganers would be small bearded men in full Catalan costume but these days, it's more likely to be a celebrity.

I guess you know you've hit the bigtime when you become the model for a Catalan Christmas pooper.

The way to a voter's heart is via his...

Mexico City Journal - Mayor Aims to Add Spark to Flagging Sex Lives - NYTimes.com

“Things have changed,” Angel Posadas Sandoval, 74, finally confessed, not going into specifics but nonetheless making himself abundantly clear.

He was talking, however obliquely, about the free Viagra the government is giving away to poor men age 60 and above.

Talking with Iran: the pro's

Foreign Policy: Think Again: Talking with Iran

Here's an article by (I think) a former diplomat arguing that the US talking immediately with Iran is a good idea.

Not sure that the case for that is conclusive, but there are interesting bits of history of note in the argument. For example, the section on page 2 about the post 9/11 situation starts:

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Tehran detained literally hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives seeking to flee Afghanistan into Iran. Iran repatriated at least 200 of these individuals to the then new government of Hamid Karzai, to Saudi Arabia, and to other countries. The Iranian government documented these actions to the United Nations and the United States in February 2002, including providing copies of each repatriated individual's passport.

But Iran could not repatriate all of the individuals it detained. For example, the Islamic Republic has no diplomatic relations with Egypt, and Iranian diplomats told my colleagues and me that Tehran was not able to send al Qaeda operatives of Egyptian origin back to Egypt.

Silly star

'Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here': Letterman baffled by actor's shambolic performance

Snippets of the interview can be seen here. I guess the whole thing can be seen at Letterman's site.

I'm inclined to go with the hoax theory.

Or maybe there's just never enough?

Those warning we failed to heed | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

I've already expressed skepticism about the immediate round of "not enough controlled burning" and "not enough fuel reduction" claims being made as soon as the destruction of last Saturday was finished.

Andrew Bolt has a column today on the topic in which he argues that the current Labor government in Victoria has been one of the worst for ignoring calls for such action from fire chiefs and the like.

He may be right for all I know from this distance.

However, I reckon he inadvertantly weakens the case when he goes and quotes the same line from a 1939 royal commission, and again in 1984.

Look, if after every major bushfire, every investigation says there was not enough fuel reduction in the disaster, it suggests that it is just always going to be one of the reasons for a bushfire. I suppose it is logical in a way.

Certainly, by giving us examples from well before the political influence of Greenies, Andrew is weakening the case against them now.

I remain very skeptical that, given the weather conditions for the whole month of January in Victoria, the never-likely-to-achieved "perfect" scheme of fuel reduction would have actually prevented major fires. I even doubt that different planning laws regarding the siting of houses may have made too much difference, given the distance ahead of the fire front that 100 kph gusts could send embers.

My intuition is that, if people like to live within a hundred meters or two of the edge of a forest (and fair enough if they do), then design standards of the house (including the enforced inclusion of a bushfire shelter) is more likely the answer.

There goes the neighbourhood

Continuing this blog's determined (yet curiously without obvious motivation) vendetta against Dubai, this article in the New York Times indicates that it is definitely not the place to be during a global economic downturn:

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.

OK, so the news is bad. (Real estate prices dropping 30% in the space of couple of months, for example.) How does the government there seek to improve things? By banning bad news, of course!:

Instead of moving toward greater transparency, the emirates seem to be moving in the other direction. A new draft media law would make it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000). Some say it is already having a chilling effect on reporting about the crisis.

Presumably, they want to ban rumours like this:

Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi or nearby Qatar and Saudi Arabia, does not have its own oil, and had built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Now, many expatriates here talk about Dubai as though it were a con game all along. Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out.

It was all built on sand: literally and metaphorically.

Nice mice

Mouse study reveals genetic component of empathy

From the report:

In the study, a highly social strain of mice learned to associate a sound played in a specific cage with something negative simply by hearing a mouse in that cage respond with squeaks of distress. A genetically different mouse strain with fewer social tendencies did not learn any connection between the cues and the other mouse's distress, showing that the ability to identify and act on another's emotions may have a genetic basis.

I'm mostly curious as to how you tell a strain of mice is "highly social". Do they spend a lot of time having friends over?

Carbon price sale!

What a slump in carbon prices means for the future - environment - New Scientist

Genius or not?

Oscar watch: Jerry Lewis is long overdue an Academy Award | Film | guardian.co.uk

Heh. The Guardian re-considers (in quite "high brow" fashion, it must be said) the history of the Jerry Lewis Wars: is he a remarkable auteur, or just an irritating schmuck? I like this part:

But, as the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has written: "Lewis's popularity in America is far greater than any French love of Lewis ... American denial of the American love of Jerry Lewis is pathological."

Let's just say that I feel he is now under-appreciated (indeed, probably virtually unknown by a deprived potential audience of children, even though nearly all of his movies are available for around $9 at Big W or K Mart.) Go on - at least get Artists and Models. Even if you are feminist, you can tell your children that Dean Martin was an evil man who should not be touching that woman without her consent.

As noted previously

'Apocalyptic predictions' mislead the public on climate change, say experts | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Basically, the British Met Office Hadley Centre makes the same point I have recently.

While both sides are at fault, I get crankier with the skeptics now because it is not as if there are no websites out there that are "moderate" in their claims, yet can point out the flaws in most skeptic arguments. Yet it seems increasingly clear that prominent media skeptics do make the attempt to read the other side. Indeed, as I have also complained recently, they just don't care about the issue of qualifications or experience of the skeptics.

Real Climate, although much derided by the likes of commenters at Marohasy's blog, has often had posts complaining about exaggerations or mis-reporting on the AGW side of the coin. (However, I have to admit, my recollection of their post on An Inconvenient Truth was too soft on big Al.)

Another noteworthy first hand account

ABC Online - ABC Bushfire Community - Billowing mass of Hell

This one is by one of the firefighters, who found themselves simply unable to do a thing for the doomed town of Marysville:

We knew this was something serious, something far beyond what we had ever seen before. The conditions were absolutely extreme. The winds were hurricane strength.

We proceeded into Marysville. This was a little tourist town of 1500 people surrounded by mountain ash forest, tree ferns and waterfalls. It was a town built around that environment. It had a commercial centre, guesthouses, all the trappings of tourism

We got to Marysville and day turned to night. There were burning embers and pieces of bark landing and starting numerous spot fires. Our intentions were to put out the spot fires, find houses and save them. That's what we are trained for: to save life and property. ...

it became clear very quickly that the scope of the fire was beyond what we were capable of. The apparent conditions were so extreme that everything was impossible. No form of active fire fighting was possible.

Our training told us that we had a resonsibility to save our own crew and it was obvious that was what we needed to do.

We made our way back to the anchor point at the oval. It was a typical country oval - a patch of clear ground. We had to sit it out. There was 30 minutes of intense stuff and we sat there for four or five hours as the town burned around us. There were houses burning everywhere we looked.

It was very confusing. A lot of residents were attempting to leave. It was pandemonium. People were pleading with us to help them free friends and family who were trapped in their houses.

A nightmarish situation.

This'll be interesting

Iran's Ahmadinejad 'ready' to talk with America | csmonitor.com

Determined chants of "Death to America" rang out in city after city in Iran Tuesday, even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a mass rally in Tehran that Iran was "ready" to talk to its arch-enemy if the US showed "real change."

Speaking as Iranians marked the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Mr. Ahmadinejad declared Iran to be "officially … a real and genuine superpower," and that the "shadow of threat has been removed forever" from the Islamic Republic.

"From now on, which power in the world can be found that has the courage to threaten the Iranian nation?" Ahmadinejad asked to cheers.

Hint: it probably starts with the letter "I".

But back to the basis on which the Iranian public appears to want "dialogue":

Despite the nod toward dialogue, the message from state-run TV was unrelenting. The afternoon news broadcast on IRIB Channel 1 devoted 25 minutes to scenes of Tehran and huge rallies across the country, with primary emphasis in every city on the "Death to America" chant.

Great line

Andrew Norton - Labor and ‘neoliberal’ policy

Andrew Norton has a great line in his post about Kevin Rudd's attack on "neo-liberalism" (which Andrew writes after pointing out the obvious problem in Rudd's argument is that it was Labor that brought in the fundamental reforms he complains about):

Apparently when the Coalition introduces a market reform it is ‘economic fundamentalism’, but when Labor implements a market reform it is ‘economic modernisation’.

Bottlenecks to watch out for

Why sustainable power is unsustainable - tech - 06 February 2009 - New Scientist

While we are talking clean energy, this recent New Scientist article outlined some of the natural bottlenecks that may be involved in some clean energy ideas.

Newt's ideas

GINGRICH: Where does the conservative movement go from here?

Newt Gingrich is notable for being a Republican identity who takes greenhouse issues seriously. He thinks the "Bush-Obama" stimulus is all wrong, and argues:

At American Solutions, there is an American Energy, Jobs and Prosperity plan being built that will turn American energy assets (including clean coal, ethanol, more production of oil and natural gas, new technologies from hydrogen to wind and solar and a vastly expanded nuclear-power program, as well as a dramatic modernization of the electric grid and an expansion of conservation) into money that stays here at home.

The next building boom ought to be in America instead of the Middle East, and the future of American energy consumption should be built on paying Americans rather than paying Venezuela, Iran, Russia or any other unreliable foreign country. OPEC's efforts to cut production and raise prices should remind us that the time to invest in new energy resources is now, before the next crisis.

It's a wonder Bob Brown and the Greens here are not arguing along similar lines for a big redeployment of the next stimulus package into energy issues (other than mere insulation.)

This is modern art: Part II

'Angel of the South' to be giant white horse - News, Art - The Independent

Maybe I should be torn. I can be quite awed by big statues, but like all sensible people, I also know that horses are inherently evil.

No, actually I am not torn at all. This planned giant white horse, standing in a nondescript field surrounded by electricity towers, would have to take the award for stupidest big public art installation ever. And it is the winner in a design competition for a work that is to be called "Angel of the South"? Is there something funny leaking into the water in that part of England?

Incidentally, the other two shortlisted entries "included a steel latticework "nest" by Richard Deacon and a tower of stacked cubes by Daniel Buren. " Hardly angel-like either, one must concede.

I see that England already has an "Angel of the North", but at least one can some influence of the concept of "angel" in it.

Great Britain's decline continues. Further updates coming.

Woops

CCTV apologizes for fireworks that burned Beijing hotel - International Herald Tribune

It was a big building too: go to the link to see the photo.

The story is also of interest for the way China effectively censored the image from its public:

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. On Tuesday morning, the home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV's brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower. By evening, the newscast skipped the story entirely.

Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, pictures of the burning hotel had been removed from most of the main Internet portals serving China. In the afternoon, the story had been largely buried, but by the evening, news of the fire was accessible via the Xinhua and CCTV Web sites.

The network's unusual public apology and the media's skittish approach to covering the fire suggested that the authorities were struggling with how to deal with a sensitive news event in the age of cellphone cameras and YouTube.

The concept of "openness" in that country has a bit of a way to go.

Further proof that no one is wrong all of the time

Pharyngula: Singularly silly singularity

The rabidly and offensively anti-religion scientist PZ Myers takes down Ray Kurzweil's silly "singularity" idea.

I have never taken Kurzweil seriously, but it's good to read another scientist's explanation of why my intuitive dismissal of the concept was well founded.

High brow author with high brow squeeze

Salman Rushdie steps out with statuesque actress half his age

Forward planning needed

Asteroid bound for Earth! Warn your grandchildren - New Scientist

AN ASTEROID that had initially been deemed harmless has turned out to have a slim chance of hitting Earth in 160 years. While that might seem a distant threat, there's far less time available to deflect it off course.

Asteroid 1999 RQ36 was discovered a decade ago, but it was not considered particularly worrisome since it has no chance of striking Earth in the next 100 years - the time frame astronomers routinely use to assess potential threats.

Now, new calculations show a 1 in 1400 chance that it will strike Earth between 2169 and 2199, according to Andrea Milani of the University of Pisa in Italy and colleagues (www.arxiv.org/abs/0901.3631).

With an estimated diameter of 560 metres, 1999 RQ36 is more than twice the size of the better-known asteroid Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036 (New Scientist, 12 July 2008, p 12). Both are large enough to unleash devastating tsunamis if they were to smash into the ocean.

Although 1999 RQ36's potential collision is late in the next century, the window of opportunity to deflect it comes much sooner, prior to a series of close approaches to Earth that the asteroid will make between 2060 and 2080.

Maybe, this asteroid will be the target of the world's first attempt to nudge one out of harm's way.

No one is wrong all the time

Germaine Greer: From its artificial islands to its boring new skycraper, Dubai's architecture is beyond crass

Well, after just dissing Germaine, I'll now quote her dissing Dubai (a place I admittedly have never visited) with approval.

Research where it hurts

Cannabis linked to testicular cancer

The physicist and the novelist

Pajamas Media John Updike and Me

Oh good. My favourite physicist Frank Tipler has an article about his difference of opinion with the late John Updike.

Tipler sounds sensible in the article. As I have mentioned before, this is what makes him so fascinating. One minute it's Jesus walking on water via neutrino beams from his feet, the next he sounds quite reasonable.

Dubious

State of Victoria's forests fanned bushfire inferno | The Australian

David Packham, a researcher from Monash University's climatology group who has specialised in bushfires, said governments had abandoned responsibility for the one control they had over wildfires -- the state of the forests that fed the flames.

"Due to terribly ill-informed and pretty well outrageous concepts of conservation, we have failed to manage our fuel and our forests," Mr Packham said. "They have become unhealthy, and dangerous."

I could be wrong, I admit, but from the television images and descriptions of events in the media, it sounds rather like twaddle to be blaming poor forest management for the Victorian fires.

The impression one gets is that you would have had to perform precautionary clearing/burning of an absolutely huge area of forest to significantly reduce fires fanned by 100kph wind gusts after a bone dry month of heat wave conditions.

UPDATE: Germaine Greer, who seems to be regarded by the British media as the expert on absolutely everything Australian despite not having lived here for what, 4 or 5 decades?, says it is indeed poor forest management that is at fault. However, it also seems that the reason she is writing this is mainly to point out how clever the aborigines were in their fire management of forests.

No wonder there are fights over forestry management when there are such differing agendas swirling around the issue.

A fun career

This Doctor Makes 'House' Calls - WSJ.com

The article is about the young doctor who spends his time coming up with the rare and readily misdiagnosed diseases for "House" episodes. What a fun job that must be.

I rarely get to see the show now, but the medical mystery format is one that I have always enjoyed, even back to Qunicy.

For some reason, there is one episode of Quincy which I can remember clearly - some bad chilli was getting sucked back up via a hose connected to a tap into the water pipes at a sports stadium, causing those getting a drink at a particular water fountain to get botulism. To this day, I do not leave hoses attached to taps sitting in buckets full of rotting food for this very reason.

Odd

Boy, 5, taken by crocodile in Daintree, Queensland

It's a tragedy, no doubt, but it does sound surprising that the kids were allowed to play there at all:

A QUEENSLAND tour guide plunged into a croc-infested mangrove swamp in a desperate bid to save his five-year-old son snatched by a 3m crocodile.

Steve Doble, who owns Daintree Rainforest Rivertrain, flung himself into the waist-deep floodwaters only to find his youngest boy had vanished.

He was alerted by the screams of his older son Ryan, 7, who had to be treated for shock after witnessing the attack.

Jeremy Doble, 5, is missing feared dead after he was taken by the crocodile, believed to be the dominant resident male Goldie, in the swamp behind his family home about 9.15am (AEST).

Locals said the "sweet, gentle-natured" child and his older brother were playing on a boogie board as their father fixed a broken mangrove boardwalk nearby, The Courier-Mail reports.

UPDATE: I should have guessed. The version in the Cairns Post is quite different:

Mr Doble was working on the boardwalk when Ryan’s screams alerted him to the tragedy. The boys were chasing their pet dog and Jeremy jumped into the flooded creek after the animal. Ryan told police he saw a large croc immediately after his brother vanished.

It also says that there were "unconfirmed reports" that the father jumped in after his son.

Such is journalism.

David Byrne in Brisbane (and elsewhere)

Regular readers may recall that one of my not entirely "conservative" features is my high regard for David Byrne and nearly anything he does. (OK, I don't automatically buy every new CD any more, but his lifetime body of work is incredibly strong.) I recommend his journal again for the quality of the writing and breadth of interest he shows, although he has become a bit slack in updating it lately.

So, proving again that I must be the coolest conservative-ish blogger in Australia (ha ha), I went to his Brisbane concert on Saturday night.

This particular tour, featuring his songs with producer Brian Eno, has been on for a good few months now, getting positive reviews everywhere, and with good reason. It is a more theatrical show than his last tour, with three dancers often on stage doing what might be called somewhat whimsical choreography. David often joins in too, and the effect is a bit like a smaller scale "Stop Making Sense".

I guess I enjoyed the last show a little more, as some Brian Eno produced songs from Talking Heads are not amongst my favourites. On the other hand, some of the songs from their just released CD are immediately appealing. Have a look at this one, for example, and just ignore the first jiggling 15 seconds, it settles down after that:



And here's a still photo I took during Burning Down the House (err, no bad taste intended, Victorians) performed for some unexplained reason with everyone on stage wearing a tutu:


Someone at the concert has posted a very clear and up close video of a new song which featured some very David-esque choreography. You'll like it if you like that sort of thing.

Ah I can't help myself. Finally here's a very good quality clip from the recent Singapore concert of an old favourite, "Heaven":



OK. I'll stop now.

The slowly revealed tragedy

It's slightly surreal how the death toll from the Victorian fires has risen during the day. Last night it was 40 feared dead; by tomorrow, it seems a good chance that a 100 or more will have been found.

It would seem that there is considerable way to go in educating people who live in high fire danger areas how to react appropriately when a fire is approaching. Still, I guess that even doing the "right" thing and not fleeing in a car when the fire front was too close did not save many people who perished in their houses. (Some areas, such as those suburban areas close to Bendigo, also might not really have been considered by the residents to be at high risk of such devastation.)

Scary photos are over at Caz's. Sympathy and prayers are offered.

Can someone explain this?

Donor - Annual Returns

(It shows the Law Society of NSW donating $16,000 to NSW Labor last financial year. They made no donation to any other party, apparently.) I know some people say that Law Societies are like solicitors unions, but I never expected that they would see any particular benefit in not being at least even handed in political donations.

While we are at it, the page for donations to the Queensland Labor Party shows substantial donations from "Australian Taxation Office" at Chermside. Huh?

Proof of alternative universes

Good Lord. Opinion Dominion knows that it has truly entered Bizarro World when it finds itself agreeing with (most of) Ken Lovell's comments over at LP. (Earlier opinion of Mr Lovell's posting career at Road to Surfdom was expressed here.)

UPDATE: some very sensible commentary here by Harry Clarke on why Ken Henry's views on alternatives to "his" stimulus package should not be taken as sacrosanct.

I would like to know why, amongst journalists who comment on economics, they don't express skepticism of the economists who (by and large) have been caught by surprise by the unfolding events of the last 12 months, yet now sound so certain as to what the "fix" should be.

Many applicants for this priesthood

Found this snippet at the end of an article about a temple in Kyoto:

Fans of religion and alcohol might also enjoy Matsuo-taisha shrine in Arashiyama, Kyoto Prefecture. It's dedicated to the god of sake, and is a place of pilgrimage for sake brewers praying for good fortune. The priests can reportedly outdrink most people, arguing that it's their sacred duty to imbibe.

Something different

There have been too many words around here lately, so here's something different (if not all that new):



There's something a bit disconcerting the first time you see a human shaped robot copying human actions too closely, I find.

It gets worse

Donating a kidney through your vagina or rectum. -By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

If the news earlier this week about a donor kidney being removed through the vagina didn't make you feel queasy enough, William Saletan explains above how the next step (for men) will likely be to try doing it via the rectum. (Germs are no problem: just bag the kidney first.)

Let's all join in a collective sound signifying revulsion now, shall we?

I have a theory: the anal probe claims by some alleged alien abductees are in fact misunderstood prophetic dreams from the future's hospitals. (Short surgeons with masks look like aliens a little, don't they?)

Another Oscar year to ignore

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button review | Film Reviews - Times Online

The big nominee in yet another year of Oscar nominations that the public just doesn't much care about (God we've had a run of Oscar seasons like that the last few years) is Benjamin Button. One reviewer is not impressed:

The film won an astonishing 13 Oscar nominations, just one short of the record set by All About Eve and Titanic. This is mystifying. It is a tedious marathon of smoke and mirrors. In terms of the basic requirements of three-reel drama the film lacks substance, credibility, a decent script and characters you might actually care for. That it should be pitching for the most coveted prizes in cinema is a far stranger fiction than the story itself.

Yet, with typical Hollywood star myopia, Kate Winslet was on Leno the other night saying something like "oh it's been such an extraordinary year for fabulous movies, of course I didn't expect to win.." etc.

(Actually, she did not come across as all that likeable in that appearance. I would link to it if I could, but it appears to be region blocked by NBC. How odd.)

Crazy brave commentary

All this political commentary in the press ("A Leader out of his League" is the ridiculous heading given in The Age to Michelle Grattan's musings) about Malcolm Turnbull's (well, actually, his whole party room's) decision to oppose the governments latest stimulus is just silly guff in my opinion. (It's his "suicide note" according to Mark Bahnisch, who likes to complain about commentary that concentrates on the political game instead of the policy substance, except of course when he thinks the game is running Labor's way.)

I can see no substantial risk to Turnbull if, as appears likely, the government will get the Greens and independents on side in the Senate with some relatively minor variations to the package. The Opposition's opposition is not going to delay it for long. A week or two, maybe? Big deal.

Furthermore, if, as just about everyone from the PM down expects, the economy really tanks and a lot more action is needed, that's further debt on its way. This package alone may not be scaring too many economics commentators with its future debt implications, but the next stimulus might make them more hesitant.

At which point, Turnbull can say "see, I told you not to spend quite so much on the last stimulus, and to target it better."

Besides which, I reckon Rudd just looks like a fake actor when he tries to do "outrage" in Parliament. Just because Howard was able to make hay out of Beazley's delaying tax cuts, the dynamics are quite different now, and people are not going to be readily sucked in to believing all the self-serving ideological dressing on the economic crisis Rudd spent his Christmas holidays apparently dreaming up.

Finally, I see that Kerry O'Brien is continuing the same pandering tone with Kevin Rudd this year. His approach in a Rudd interview is always along the lines "help me to understand why what you say is right." But when it comes to the Liberals it's "clearly you are wrong. Confess!"

UPDATE: Andrew Bolt points out that there are indications that the public is not uniformly rushing to condemn Turnbull's caution, contrary to what most commentators predicted.

Un-informed

Ocean Acidification and Corals - Watts Up With That?

Watts Up With That has become a favourite blog for global warming sceptics, often quoted by Andrew Bolt, Jennifer Marohasy, etc. (I see Jennifer is away for an undefined period; probably to seek a credibility transplant after some of her recent efforts.)

But Watt's Up is spreading its wings to encourage scepticism about ocean acidification, with the above "guest post" by Steven Goddard.

It is, without doubt, the most starkly uninformed sceptical post about ocean acidification I have even seen at a blog that likes to credit itself as having a scientific attitude.

Worthy of Ted Baxter

Hamster labelled a murder suspect | Weird True Freaky | News.com.au

Go to the link to see the amusing news video.

And by the way, it's sad to think that probably half of my readership are too young to know of the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Stimulus issues

One thing seems to be missing so far from commentary on the stimulus package: criticism of the cash handouts.

As I noted only a couple of weeks ago, Peter Martin had belatedly pointed out that the US experience indicated that temporary gifts of cash did not do much to increase consumer spending.

So what do we get now as a big component of stimulus? More immediate cash. I am waiting for Peter Martin's comments on this, as he is yet to express his own opinion.

Oddly, Ross Gittens has seemingly decided that economics is just a magic art that no one can ever truly know anything about anyway:

It's all very well for Gerry Harvey to say the cash splash failed because he saw no sign of it in his stores. The economy is just a bit bigger than Harvey Norman. The fact is we don't yet have most of the figures for what happened in the economy in December, or even the last three months of last year.

And even when we get the figures it won't be easy to detect what effect various government measures have had on them. For instance, since there are no miracle cures, evidence of the economy's continued decline doesn't prove the measures did no good.

To measure accurately the effect of the measures you have to know something we'll never know: what would have happened in the economy had the authorities not done what they did.

As for my take, which is just as good as anyone else's at the moment, the package deserved better targeting; much better targeting.

Top marks for creativity, at least

Ehud Barak proposes tunnel connecting Gaza to West Bank - Telegraph

Respect your mice

From a report at Physorg.com:

Humans and mice are both good at assessing risk in everyday tasks, according to a study by Rutgers University scientists published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

The finding leads Gallistel, professor of psychology and co-director of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, to conclude that risk assessment is not basically a high-level conscious activity, but one that is programmed into the brains of animals - mice, humans and many others....

"These animals [the mice] were doing something that, on the face of it, was mathematically complicated," Gallistel said.

Seems to me the lesson to take from this is that the banking and investment industry may as well be run by mice. Send them to Wall Street, I say.

Psst...don't tell Kevin

It does seem odd that when thinking about ways to stimulate the Australian economy, one of the first things our PM should announce is spending on home insulation.

But, it could have been worse:

In their search to find programs upon which to rest the complaint that the stimulus bill is too generous, some conservatives have seized upon one of their favorite whipping boys: the arts. "Even [House Republicans] can't quite believe it... $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts," declared Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana).

Pence was being sarcastic, of course, but the rest of the article is a defence of government spending on the arts as a stimulus measure:

Arts are actually a great form of economic investment, particularly public art, and they should be amply funded in the stimulus package. Every year nonprofit arts organizations generate $166.2 billion in economic activity, support 5.7 million jobs, and send almost $30 billion back to government, according to Americans for the Arts. There is hardly a person more likely to go out and spend her stimulus check than a starving artist.

One suspects a certain rubberiness in those figures. It also continues the line that was behind much of Rudd's first stimulus idea: that that the poorest people are the best to "stimulate". If we follow that logic too far, we'll end up with the most confortable old age pensioners, unemployable Bachelor of Arts graduates and no-audience polemic playwrights in the world, while the government and those actually doing productive work get pooer. Then I guess it'll be their turn for stimulus.

Michael Crichton would have loved them

Technology Review: The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle

A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight.

A fuel cell and battery aircraft: cool

How Things Work: Flying Fuel Cells | Flight Today | Air & Space Magazine

Well, it was only a powered glider, but it's still impressive:

....his HK 36 Super Dimona carried a 200-pound hydrogen fuel cell that ran an electric motor to turn its propeller. The fuel cell couldn’t quite put out the energy required for takeoff—45 kilowatts—and got help from a lithium ion battery to lift off the runway in Ocaña, Spain. At 3,300 feet Barberán disconnected the battery, and for the next 20 minutes the Super Dimona flew straight and level at about 60 mph on just the fuel cell. It was the first time a piloted airplane had flown powered by a fuel cell alone.

Urgent geek toy alert

A TARDIS Of Your Very Own | Discover Magazine

More details here.

Luke, use the Force

It sounds like this would be an interesting book: real life accounts of people who believe they have had otherworldly assistance when in a dire situation. (Well, some of them just believe it was their brain playing tricks, but it's still an interesting phenomena, even it you are allergic to the paranormal.) The comments after the article are worth reading too.

Famous battle toilets of Japan

I wish I was in Japan at the moment, to see the touring "toilet museum" exhibition. A highlight:

... history buffs are sure to enjoy seeing a quarter-size model of the field toilet on which the famed feudal lord Takeda Shingen reportedly mulled strategies during the Warring States Period (1467-1568).

Expect fewer appointments today, doctor

Dubbo doctor in hot water for posing as prostitute on YouTube - National

This is pretty funny, at least if you don't live in Dubbo and stories of oddball doctors amuse you, but it remains a mystery to me as to why the police would be involved.

Unusual delusion of the day

Mind Hacks: Shattered delusions

Mind Hacks has a post about an unusual delusion of old Europe, in which the sufferers believed that they (or parts of their body) were made of glass.

That is pretty strange. (If you go to the original article on this, you find some very odd similar exampes - such as "earthernware men, and "urinal man".)

You learn something new every day.

From the formerly great Britain - a continuing series

Apparently, 2 million Britons watched Jamie Oliver masturbate a pig on TV last week. Seriously.

On a primary-coloured set, in front of a whooping audience, Oliver had four volunteers, plus Joanna Lumley, spending 24 hours in sow stalls, as an experiment called “Pig Brother”. There was a sow giving birth, live in the studio, as some kind of “Here come the little sausages!” sideshow. And in a moment more The Word than The Word ever managed, Oliver - face contorted with nausea - masturbated a boar into a jar as the audience cheered him on.

It is surprising (well, maybe not, given the excision of anything resembling boundaries in British TV over the last decade or so) that this not the first time such activity has featured there:

Of course, Jamie isn't the first person to masturbate a boar on television - Rebecca “sex with David Beckham” Loos pioneered it as her signature manoeuvre on Five's The Farm, way back in 2004 - but there seemed to be a more palpable air of unwillingness here, as Jamie wailed, “It's spraying all up my arm”, and then asked “Why's it taking so long?” These were not “happy days” with the Naked Chef.

I find this fairly puzzling, as Oliver's show was apparently a serious attempt to raise public awareness of pig farming animal welfare issues in England and Europe. It would appear that pigs are raised considerably more humanely in England, yet cheap European pork is overwhelming the English product in sales.

At the risk of further lessening my credibility as a conservative blogger (at least in the eyes of those who think that it is impossible to want action on greenhouse gases without being a crypto-socialist,) this is a subject that I reckon actually does deserve attention in Australia as well. It seems odd that chickens and their free range status is a matter of interest to many people when they are looking for eggs or chicken meat, yet the conditions in which a (roughly) dog like animal is raised does not seem to be on the radar of most Australians. (Well, it wasn't on my radar either until thoughts about whaling and cruelty made me look around at sites regarding farm animal welfare.)

But really, why put on a sideshow of semen collection as part of this. It's what the punters want, is it?

Sorry, I just can't get used to animal husbandry practices as a source of humour for television.

Coded messages

Classified: The Secret History of the Personal Column by HG Cocks review | - Times Online

An amusing book review here about the history of the "personal column" in newspapers and magazines.

A magazine devote to it was started in England in 1915, but it was considered a moral scandal:

The police were particularly interested in the number of young men who claimed to be artistic, musical, unconventional, or fans of Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman. Officers also had their doubts about women who claimed to be “jolly” or “sporty”, thinking this might be a euphemism for what might now be called “up for it”.

This part of the review is particularly interesting:

...the anthropologist Gilbert Bartell and his wife posed as swingers to compile a study of wife-swapping in the Chicago area (making excuses and leaving at the vital moment).

The image of swinging, as sold by magazines such as Playboy, was all glamour and decadence. So the Bartells were surprised to find their fellow swingers were, well, rather dull. “The typical male was a slack-waisted, balding man of about 5ft 10in,” reports Cocks. “Women averaged 5ft 4in and, if not exactly fat, had succumbed to the early ravages of middle-aged spread. They were not enormously overweight, but at the very least tended to be over-endowed in the hips, thighs and stomach. For all the advertised charms of big breasts, the women tended to be relatively flat-chested.”

Well, I already knew that from watching Fast Forward a couple of decades ago.

On internet advertising

Roger L. Simon - Pajamas Media matters

Pajama Media's group advertising system has failed.

I know absolutely nothing about internet advertising, except for this fact: it is extremely rare for me to ever click on a advertisement on a blog, or a newspaper site. I would guess at about once a year.

And this is from a person who spends far too much time on blogs and the internet.

The internet is great for finding products and services, but that's what Google is for. I may click on a Google search "sponsored ad", but that's different.

Maybe I am the odd one out, but if a significant number of people are like me, I just can't see how any blogs or newspaper or magazine sites make significant money from advertising.

Dominion over-rated

Attenborough: Genesis? It can go forth and multiply

As nice a man as he appears to be, Sir David Attenborough is just as much off the mark here as those fellow atheists who blame nearly every single war on religious motivation:

Sir David, 82, said the devastation of the environment has its roots in the first words that God supposedly uttered to humankind, as detailed in Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

Come on. I thought it was now commonly believed that many pagan societies collapsed as a result of over-flogging the environment. Did all of them have gods directing them to use the earth to maximum advantage too?

Some people might suggest that he's right, in that some societies such as the Australian aborigines and Native Americans lived in harmony with the environment. This always ignores, however, both the relative technological incapacity these groups had to stuff up their environment, and the damage or change that did manage to create anyway. Changing vast swathes of forest to grassland by regular burning is somehow OK for the aborigines when they arrived on the continent; I can't imagine Bob Brown being all that enamoured of the practice if a new island continent was discovered tomorrow. (Mega-fauna would almost certainly have been better off without aborigines too.)

That all humans like to arrange things to make themselves more comfortable, have developed better technology with which to do that over the years, and can find it hard to recognise the point at which to pull back and let an overused resource recover, has much more to do with it than any religious motivation.

UPDATE: overnight it also occurred to me that non-Christian Japan probably has the worst record for overfishing in recent decades.
UPDATE 2: what about China too? Barely a Christian influence to be seen there, yet hardly a beacon of environmental rectitude.