This recent post noted a paper (by credible physicists) indicating that mini black holes that might be created at the LHC might live for minutes, rather than the previously popular suggestion of minuscule fractions of a second. They still did not think that there could be danger from such micro black holes (they still could not start serious accretion).
I see that the authors of the paper appear to have revised it to make it sound more emphatically safe than the wording used in first version indicated. (One suspects on the suggestion of physicists at CERN?)
This led me to wondering what Rainer Plaga was up to, given that he had defended his early "danger warning" paper from criticism that he had made a fundamental mistake in the formula he had applied.
So, I emailed him. (Gotta love the internet.)
He responded saying that he is working on a further appendix to his paper, which will refer to the Casadio/Fabi/Harms paper about the minute-long black holes. He says they use basically the same approach as him, and he notes that the Mangano/Giddings safety paper did not refer to this approach at all. (Remember Casadio and co acknowledge discussions with Plaga in their paper, indicating that he definitely has credibility.)
So, more to come yet on the issue.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The BBC on ocean acidification
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Coral lab' offers acidity insight
Go to the link to find a series of pages which provide a quite balanced treatment of the issue of ocean acidification.
As usual, the news is nearly all bad. (There are a couple of quasi-dissenting scientists noted, but still no one who seems to think the oceans and reefs are going to be OK.)
Go to the link to find a series of pages which provide a quite balanced treatment of the issue of ocean acidification.
As usual, the news is nearly all bad. (There are a couple of quasi-dissenting scientists noted, but still no one who seems to think the oceans and reefs are going to be OK.)
Something I didn't know
France moves to raise drinking age to 18 - International Herald Tribune
I like the reaction from businesses in France:
And yet it is the British with the worst reputation for drunken yobs on the streets. So how do the French teenagers manage:The drinking age in France varies depending on the type of alcohol involved and the place of sale. But anyone 16 or older can order beer and wine in bars.
French teenagers who suddenly find themselves underage may grow jealous of neighboring countries such as Germany or Italy where the legal drinking age is still 16 for beer, wine or liquor. Europeans overall take a more liberal view of alcohol than, for instance, the United States, where the legal drinking age is 21. In most of Western Europe, it ranges from 16 to 18.
A study of French 16-year-olds showed an overall rise in regular alcohol use from 1999 to 2007, going from 8 percent to 13 percent. In 2007, almost one in five boys, and one in 10 girls, reported at least 10 drinking episodes during the month, according to the French Monitoring Center on Drugs and Addiction.I don't find that too shocking, compared to what one imagines what would happen in Britain if the drinking age was lowered to 16.
I like the reaction from businesses in France:
Obviously, I need to spend more time in France observing society.Café owners complain that they cannot play the role of the police, checking everyone's identity. Some with a large under-18 clientele say business will suffer.
"Ten-year-olds, 12-year-olds, I agree. But to forbid 16-year-olds? You can't take people for idiots," said Anais Chettrit, owner of the café Le Molière in eastern Paris.
Chettrit said that 60 percent of the clients at her busy café, near two high schools, were under 18 and that it was "certain" raising the drinking age would cut into business.
Better left unsaid
Doctor apologizes for saying people should smoke themselves to death › Japan Today
In any event, did you realise how popular smoking still is in Japan?:
A doctor has apologized after saying that people should smoke themselves to an early death to save the country money on elderly care, according to his hospital. “It is clear that medical costs will increase if non-smoking spreads,” the doctor said last week, according to Ida Hospital in Kawasaki City. “It’s better that people smoke a lot and die early.”Maybe he was an economics student before he did medicine.
In any event, did you realise how popular smoking still is in Japan?:
Japan’s overall smoking rate is declining. The rate for men was 39.5%, still high among developed countries but half of the rate of four decades ago, according to a 2008 survey by Japan Tobacco Inc. The rate for women was 12.9%, down from 15% in 1968.I see that Australia was at that rate for men in 1980. (In 1945, 72% of Australian men smoked.) We're currently at about 22%. Japan has some way to go.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Prediction: Labor in Queensland gone
Clean oil spill by hand or stop, Sunshine Coast council told - ABC News
In case you hadn't heard, there's quite a big oil spill off the Queensland coast, affecting first Moreton Island, and now some of the nicest beaches on the Sunshine Coast.
You can't blame the Labor government for that, but I suspect the very slow and bureaucratic reaction to the clean up is quite likely to be the final nail in the coffin of the Anna Bligh government at the forthcoming election:
Mark Bahnisch says today that Labor is in deep trouble. That's good. There really was no way that Labor deserved to win the last election, but a hopeless performance by the Liberals in particular just meant that people couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Opposition.
The timing of this election for the LNP is good. The awful situation in the Bundberg public hospital with wildly over-enthusiastic surgeon Patel, although known before the last election, is in the news again thanks to his commital trial. The Health Minister made himself sound a completely insensitive idiot by saying he should be the one receiving an apology following a long delayed report on how one of his nurses came to be raped. (The core security problem is also still to be fixed!) The police minister Judy Spence has always looked and sounded incompetent. The 30 year old Treasurer Andrew Fraser might be a smart guy for all I know, but it's not a good look to be in that position just as your State's finances take a nosedive, no matter whose fault it is.
Anna Bligh is trying to keep all the attention on herself, but she doesn't have the same roguish appeal of Peter Beattie. (Although, that said, it's hard to imagine him being able to overcome the "it's time" factor of this election either.) Her appearances with Prime Minister Rudd, who manages to maintain popularity by sending voters large cheques every 3 months, do not seem to be doing the trick.
A surprising number of people that I know who generally appear to be Labor inclined have said that they don't mind Lawrence Springborg. (In fact, they seem to like him more than I do.) I think he just has to pretty much keep his head down and he's in.
I suspect that most people will vote with the attitude that the LNP could not do any worse, and it is time for a break from Labor. It's not an unreasonable way of looking at it.
And it is, of course, always a delicious irony that it's Labor that keeps putting up women Premiers who promptly go on to lose government as soon as they have to face the electorate. (Maybe they will eventually cotton on that they should put one up as leader of the Opposition first and let them get into power that way.)
People of Queensland: let's keep up this proud Australian tradition. It is fun to annoy electioneering feminists, after all.
In case you hadn't heard, there's quite a big oil spill off the Queensland coast, affecting first Moreton Island, and now some of the nicest beaches on the Sunshine Coast.
You can't blame the Labor government for that, but I suspect the very slow and bureaucratic reaction to the clean up is quite likely to be the final nail in the coffin of the Anna Bligh government at the forthcoming election:
Indeed.The Sunshine Coast Regional Council on the south-east Queensland coast has been ordered to stop the clean-up of 8.5 kilometres of beaches that have been coated in fuel oil that leaked from the ship Pacific Adventurer.
The ABC has learned that Maritime Safety Queensland has told the council it is inappropriate to use machinery on the beach to clean up the oil slick and that staff should use hand tools.
Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot says he can not understand the ruling.
"We're just thinking that's a bit ridiculous," he said.
Mark Bahnisch says today that Labor is in deep trouble. That's good. There really was no way that Labor deserved to win the last election, but a hopeless performance by the Liberals in particular just meant that people couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Opposition.
The timing of this election for the LNP is good. The awful situation in the Bundberg public hospital with wildly over-enthusiastic surgeon Patel, although known before the last election, is in the news again thanks to his commital trial. The Health Minister made himself sound a completely insensitive idiot by saying he should be the one receiving an apology following a long delayed report on how one of his nurses came to be raped. (The core security problem is also still to be fixed!) The police minister Judy Spence has always looked and sounded incompetent. The 30 year old Treasurer Andrew Fraser might be a smart guy for all I know, but it's not a good look to be in that position just as your State's finances take a nosedive, no matter whose fault it is.
Anna Bligh is trying to keep all the attention on herself, but she doesn't have the same roguish appeal of Peter Beattie. (Although, that said, it's hard to imagine him being able to overcome the "it's time" factor of this election either.) Her appearances with Prime Minister Rudd, who manages to maintain popularity by sending voters large cheques every 3 months, do not seem to be doing the trick.
A surprising number of people that I know who generally appear to be Labor inclined have said that they don't mind Lawrence Springborg. (In fact, they seem to like him more than I do.) I think he just has to pretty much keep his head down and he's in.
I suspect that most people will vote with the attitude that the LNP could not do any worse, and it is time for a break from Labor. It's not an unreasonable way of looking at it.
And it is, of course, always a delicious irony that it's Labor that keeps putting up women Premiers who promptly go on to lose government as soon as they have to face the electorate. (Maybe they will eventually cotton on that they should put one up as leader of the Opposition first and let them get into power that way.)
People of Queensland: let's keep up this proud Australian tradition. It is fun to annoy electioneering feminists, after all.
Gift solicited
Bitten: True Medical Stories of ... - Google Book Search
Looks to be a fun read:
Breath will not be held.
Looks to be a fun read:
We’ve all been bitten. And we all have stories.Be the first reader to send me a gift in (nearly) 4 years of blogging! Postal address provided on request.
The bite attacks that Pamela Nagami, M.D., has chosen to write about in Bitten take place in big cities, small towns, and remote villages around the world and throughout history, locales as familiar as New York or Hollywood, or exotic as Africa, the Middle East, or Indonesia. They include a six-year-old girl who descended into weeks of extreme lassitude from a tick bite; a diabetic in the West Indies who awoke to find a rat eating two of his toes; a California man who developed “flesh-eating strep” following a penile bite; and more.
Breath will not be held.
Child brides of India
High Prevalence Of Child Marriage In India Fuels Fertility Risks
So, how young are they getting married in India?:
These figures are pretty surprising. On the up side, it's good to see some fertility/sexuality issues for which no one can blame the Catholic Church!
....nearly half of adult Indian women, aged 20 to 24, were married before the legal age of 18, and that those child marriages were significantly associated with poor fertility outcomes, such as unwanted and terminated pregnancies, repeat childbirths in less than 24 months, and increased sterilization rates.I'm not entirely sure why they included "increased sterilization rates" under the heading "poor fertility outcomes", but in any event, it's the terminated pregnancies that are of more concern.
So, how young are they getting married in India?:
Evidently, it's a law that isn't enforced.The study found that 44.5 percent of women ages 22 to 24 were married before age 18. More than one in five – 22.6 percent – were married before age 16, while 2.6 percent were married before age 13.
India, the largest and most prosperous nation in south Asia, raised the legal age for marriage to 18 in 1978.
These figures are pretty surprising. On the up side, it's good to see some fertility/sexuality issues for which no one can blame the Catholic Church!
Pope doesn't surf the web all that often
Pope embraces internet in apology over Holocaust bishop -Times Online
The Pope has admitted fallibility over the Vatican's handling of a Holocaust-denying bishop and has vowed to make full use of the internet to make sure the Holy See is not caught out again.I guess we'll know he has embraced the internet when we see him start Twittering during Mass in St Peter's.
Less than zero photons?
Quantum physics and reality | I'm not looking, honest! | The Economist
Not all that many places picked up on this report that appeared in The Economist, of all places, probably because it is hard to understand what it means.
It seems that a team of clever Japanese physicists have confirmed another team's experiment in which they, in effect, directly observed a quantum paradox (called Hardy's paradox. No, I hadn't heard of it before either.)
The implications, according to the magazine are:
But the physical meaning of what they observed seems very unclear:
This is all very interesting, but it seems to me that no one is doing a good job of explaining what it means from the point of view of the understanding of quantum physics and reality. I have some questions:
1. Is this relevant to the question of whether the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct?
2. Is it relevant to the more famous quantum paradox of Schrodinger's cat? (My initial hunch is that it tells us the cat is really there, and it is both dead and alive!)
Philosophers of the quantum world, get to it!
Not all that many places picked up on this report that appeared in The Economist, of all places, probably because it is hard to understand what it means.
It seems that a team of clever Japanese physicists have confirmed another team's experiment in which they, in effect, directly observed a quantum paradox (called Hardy's paradox. No, I hadn't heard of it before either.)
The implications, according to the magazine are:
They managed to do what had previously been thought impossible: they probed reality without disturbing it. Not disturbing it is the quantum-mechanical equivalent of not really looking. So they were able to show that the universe does indeed exist when it is not being observed.Well, that's encouraging, I suppose.
But the physical meaning of what they observed seems very unclear:
That word appears in the abstract to the paper:What the several researchers found was that there were more photons in some places than there should have been and fewer in others. The stunning result, though, was that in some places the number of photons was actually less than zero. Fewer than zero particles being present usually means that you have antiparticles instead. But there is no such thing as an antiphoton (photons are their own antiparticles, and are pure energy in any case), so that cannot apply here.
The only mathematically consistent explanation known for this result is therefore Hardy’s. The weird things he predicted are real and they can, indeed, only be seen by people who are not looking. Dr Yokota and his colleagues went so far as to call their results “preposterous”.
Unlike Hardy's original argument in which the contradiction is inferred by retrodiction, our experiment reveals its paradoxical nature as preposterous values actually read out from the meter.The Science Daily version of the story doesn't add much.
This is all very interesting, but it seems to me that no one is doing a good job of explaining what it means from the point of view of the understanding of quantum physics and reality. I have some questions:
1. Is this relevant to the question of whether the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct?
2. Is it relevant to the more famous quantum paradox of Schrodinger's cat? (My initial hunch is that it tells us the cat is really there, and it is both dead and alive!)
Philosophers of the quantum world, get to it!
The tiny, tiny radio
The World's Smallest Radio: Scientific American
Carbon nanotubes have already successfully been used as tiny radios, apparently. The implications:
I like the first comment after the story:
Carbon nanotubes have already successfully been used as tiny radios, apparently. The implications:
The nanotube radio, its fabricators say, could be the basis for a range of revolutionary applications: hearing aids, cell phones and iPods small enough to fit completely within the ear canal. The nanoradio “would easily fit inside a living cell,” Zettl says. “One can envision interfaces to brain or muscle functions or radio-controlled devices moving through the bloodstream.”I'm not entirely sure what the memory of an ear canal iPod would be based on, but it's a neat science fiction-y idea.
I like the first comment after the story:
Now the tinfoil hat battalions have something new to worry about; never mind the "implant that the ___ put in to control my brain", they can now fantasize about receiving nanoradio control devices from every vaccination or blood test!
Cats making people mad (and otherwise ill)
Research supports toxoplasmosis link to schizophrenia
Dr McConkey says: "It's highly unlikely that we will find one definitive trigger for schizophrenia as there are many factors involved, but our studies will provide a clue to how toxoplasmosis infection - which is more common than you might think - can impact on the development of the condition in some individuals.
"In addition, the ability of the parasite to make dopamine implies a potential link with other neurological conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, Tourette's syndrome and attention deficit disorders, says Dr McConkey. "We'd like to extend our research to look at this possibility more closely."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
An unexpected finding
Older father, younger mother, bad idea for baby? - Science, News - The Independent
The offspring of older fathers are more likely to do less well in intelligence tests than the children of younger men, scientists say, and it may be the result of genetic problems with the sperm of men over 45. The children of older mothers, by contrast, tend to fare better in intelligence tests than children with younger mothers. The researchers believe this may be the result of better nurturing by more mature women.It is one of the anomalies of modern life that bodies are best for healthy procreation at a relatively young age, but emotional maturity lags quite far behind.
Stem cell musings
You just won the stem-cell war. Don't lose your soul. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
Saletan is routinely an interesting writer on science and bioethics, and this column is no exception.
Saletan is routinely an interesting writer on science and bioethics, and this column is no exception.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Useless research update
Belief and the brain's 'God spot' - Science, News - The Independent
But really, why does anyone really think that this research is worthwhile or beneficial? There are surely many psychiatric illnesses which are worth investigating very thoroughly with MRI and other probes; why waste time and money on research which is always going to be inconclusive and of no potential benefit?
Scientists searching for the neural "God spot", which is supposed to control religious belief, believe that there is not just one but several areas of the brain that form the biological foundations of religious belief....
"Religious belief and behaviour are a hallmark of human life, with no accepted animal equivalent, and found in all cultures," said Professor Jordan Grafman, from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, near Washington. "Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and they support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary-adaptive cognitive functions."Well, I am not entirely sure how one would ever be certain that there is "no accepted animal equivalent". We can be pretty confident that cats are atheists, but a good case could be made for dogs worshipping their owners.
But really, why does anyone really think that this research is worthwhile or beneficial? There are surely many psychiatric illnesses which are worth investigating very thoroughly with MRI and other probes; why waste time and money on research which is always going to be inconclusive and of no potential benefit?
You heard it here first (or elsewhere, maybe. And if it doesn't happen it wasn't mentioned here at all, OK?)
Famed pastor predicts imminent catastrophe
(Actually, there is another alleged prophesy I have been meaning to post about, and I will as soon as I can find it on the web again.)
(Actually, there is another alleged prophesy I have been meaning to post about, and I will as soon as I can find it on the web again.)
More on Carbon Tax Vs Cap and trade
Technology Review: The Real Price of Obama's Cap-and-Trade Plan
Obama is planning on generating a lot of money from a cap and trade system. Sounds like building a budget on shaky foundations to me.
Anyhow, here's a good article listing succinctly the pros and cons of carbon tax vs cap and trade.
Obama is planning on generating a lot of money from a cap and trade system. Sounds like building a budget on shaky foundations to me.
Anyhow, here's a good article listing succinctly the pros and cons of carbon tax vs cap and trade.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Remember, you saw it here first
There has been an unusual trend lately for Tim Blair, and now Andrew Bolt, to be posting the same videos that have appeared here months ago:
* Andrew Bolt today posts Youtube of dog with a ball throwing machine. Same video posted here in March 2008.
* On March 4, Tim Blair last week posts video of newscast in which a hamster is identified as a murder suspect. Same video had appeared here on 4 February 2009.
* Tim Blair posts the Youtube of the Mitchell & Webb "Bad Vicar" sketch on February 28, 2009. The same video was posted at Opinion Dominion on 11 April 2008.
At this rate, I figure that both Tim and Andrew are due to start believing in ocean acidification and the need to reduce CO2 by about May 2010.
* Andrew Bolt today posts Youtube of dog with a ball throwing machine. Same video posted here in March 2008.
* On March 4, Tim Blair last week posts video of newscast in which a hamster is identified as a murder suspect. Same video had appeared here on 4 February 2009.
* Tim Blair posts the Youtube of the Mitchell & Webb "Bad Vicar" sketch on February 28, 2009. The same video was posted at Opinion Dominion on 11 April 2008.
At this rate, I figure that both Tim and Andrew are due to start believing in ocean acidification and the need to reduce CO2 by about May 2010.
Time for your bad ocean acidification news of the week
Proof on the Half Shell: A More Acid Ocean Corrodes Sea Life: Scientific American
The shells of tiny ocean animals known as foraminifera—specifically Globigerina bulloides—are shrinking as a result of the slowly acidifying waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. ...Not encouraging.
The researchers found that modern G. bulloides could not build shells as large as the ones their ancestors formed as recently as century ago. In fact, modern shells were 35 percent smaller than in the relatively recent past—
Getting down to the nitty gritty
Moon base: Location, location, location | csmonitor.com
A pretty good article here speculating on the location and other practical details of a lunar outpost.
The lunar south pole still looks good:
I don't know if this is being considered at all, but my idea is that building a covered framework over which a little bulldozer can gradually pile up a deep mound of dirt for cosmic ray protection might work. (The covering material itself could be airtight, or the whole interior could be sprayed with a sealant.) I would assume that the lower gravity means the framework can be considerably lighter than what you would need on earth.
This seems a lot simpler to me than the idea of baking lunar bricks in situ. You could be lucky and build such a shelter over a pre-existing little crater. Or maybe you just work on a low rise dome type structure. Maybe geodesic domes would work well?
I would be curious to know if this has been considered. Just send the cheque in the mail, NASA.
A pretty good article here speculating on the location and other practical details of a lunar outpost.
The lunar south pole still looks good:
The allure of Shackleton Crater is that it is relatively hospitable and practical. Explorers perched on its rim would experience a night of only 2 Earth days and 4 hours. The crater’s proximity to the moon’s day-night boundary – called the terminator – also makes it an ideal place to test technologies and find out what works and what doesn’t in both environments.And here is a suggestion for another problem:
Sounds simple. But one of the main problems for humans is dealing with radiation for anyone needing to stay there for any length of time.But habitats aren’t the only pieces of hardware that must be warmed. Robotic rovers and their batteries also need to survive. “We have a hard time keeping … trucks working in Siberia,” Dr. Ramachandran says. “We have no experience working at minus 150 degrees.”
The solution could be a “wadi” – a patch of lunar surface somewhat larger than a rover and covered with what is in effect a reflective tent. During the day, lenses would heat these strategically spaced wadis. As night nears, hardware would extend a reflective cover over the area – like tin foil over a turkey, shiny side down.
I don't know if this is being considered at all, but my idea is that building a covered framework over which a little bulldozer can gradually pile up a deep mound of dirt for cosmic ray protection might work. (The covering material itself could be airtight, or the whole interior could be sprayed with a sealant.) I would assume that the lower gravity means the framework can be considerably lighter than what you would need on earth.
This seems a lot simpler to me than the idea of baking lunar bricks in situ. You could be lucky and build such a shelter over a pre-existing little crater. Or maybe you just work on a low rise dome type structure. Maybe geodesic domes would work well?
I would be curious to know if this has been considered. Just send the cheque in the mail, NASA.
From the Jerusalem Post
My Word: In the holiday spirit | Columnists | Jerusalem Post:
In an op-ed in the Post on March 3, Michael Bar-Zohar noted that a survey published last month by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center indicates that 46.7 percent of the Palestinians believe that Hamas defeated Israel in the recent fighting in Gaza. On a visit to Egypt many years ago, I was taken aback to discover how many places marked the October 6 War 'victory.' I am not, however, surprised that Egypt - which did nothing to improve life in Gaza during the decades in which it was in control - does not want anything to do with its Palestinian brethren there even now. Let Israel open its border with Gaza, Egypt can't risk it, goes the common thinking in the Egyptian capital.
The terror attack in Cairo a week ago, in which a French schoolchild was killed, shows yet again that they do have reason to fear Islamization. Global jihad is, after all, global. But don't say it too loudly in London or Paris - you might offend the local Muslims.
Nothing like humility
Architect of desire: Frank Lloyd Wright's private life was even more unforgettable than his buildings
I recall from some documentary on him that FLW was an eccentric character with a convoluted love life that featured a gruesome axe murder, but I did not remember how much he liked himself:
I recall from some documentary on him that FLW was an eccentric character with a convoluted love life that featured a gruesome axe murder, but I did not remember how much he liked himself:
When questioned about his vanity, Wright justified himself by saying: "Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility; I chose honest arrogance."Heh.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Why not to believe in carbon capture & storage
Carbon capture and storage | Trouble in store | The Economist
Here's a detailed article from the Economist explaining the huge uncertainties and problems with carbon storage and capture. Some key points:
And will it even work long term? Even small leaks would be a problem:
Here's a detailed article from the Economist explaining the huge uncertainties and problems with carbon storage and capture. Some key points:
In 2005 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists that advises the United Nations on global warming, came up with a range of $14-91 for each tonne of emissions avoided through CCS. Last year, the IEA suggested that the price for the first big plants would be $40-90. McKinsey, a consultancy, has arrived at an estimate of €60-90, or $75-115.
Either way, that is more than the price of emissions in the European Union: about €10 a tonne. America does not have a carbon price at all yet. A bill defeated last year in the Senate would have yielded a carbon price as low as $30 in 2020, according to an official analysis. So CCS might not be financially worthwhile for years to come....
Omar Abbosh, of Accenture, a consultancy, says that carbon trading as practised in the EU and contemplated in America does not give enough certainty about future carbon prices to justify an investment in a CCS plant. Mr Paelinck of Alstom agrees: no board would risk spending €1 billion on one, he says, without generous subsidies.The article indicates that the cost of individual CCS plants could be anything from $1 billion to $1.8 billion US dollars. (And that might be based on the fact that the USA apparently has a pre-built system of pipelines in their oil areas that could be used for transported the CO2. I assume Australia does not have anywhere near as extensive a system.)
And will it even work long term? Even small leaks would be a problem:
Carbon dioxide forms an acid when it dissolves in water. This acid can react with minerals to form carbonates, locking away the carbon in a relatively inert state. But it can also eat through the man-made seals or geological strata intended to keep it in place. A leakage rate of just 1% a year, Greenpeace points out, would lead to 63% of the carbon dioxide stored in any given reservoir being released within 100 years, almost entirely undoing the supposed environmental benefit.That CCS is being promoted so heavily seems simply to be a triumph of an industry's self preservation instinct over common sense.
Turnbull worth reading
PM's cheap money shot | The Australian
Malcolm Turnbull's take on the origins of the economic crisis, and Rudd's silly summer essay on the topic, is pretty good.
Malcolm Turnbull's take on the origins of the economic crisis, and Rudd's silly summer essay on the topic, is pretty good.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Hooked on worms
Can Parasitic Hookworms Help In Treatment Of Multiple Sclerosis?
Get this for a cute acronym:
Anyhow, the study itself is kind of interesting:
Get this for a cute acronym:
The WIRMS (Worms for Immune Regulation in MS) study ...Some doctor probably sat up in bed and had a "eureka" moment when he thought of that.
Anyhow, the study itself is kind of interesting:
The £400,000, three-year project funded by the MS Society, aims to determine whether infection with a small and harmless number of the worms can lead to an improvement on the severity of MS over a 12 month period...Given that cancers can be fought by the immune system too, is there any anti-cancer parasite out there to be found?
The 25 worms are microscopic and are introduced painlessly through a patch in the arm. They are then flushed out after nine months.
Watchmen not recommended
Geek boys everywhere who are into graphic novels seems to be all a-Twitter about the movie version of Watchmen, a movie with the odd distinction of featuring (amongst others) the first blue nude male superhero.
I'm no fan of the whole superhero genre, despite quite liking the last Spiderman. But Anthony Lane's review of Watchmen certainly puts me off any idea of seeing it (and is pretty funny.) Some highlights:
UPDATE: here's Dana Stevens in Slate on the violence in the movie:
UPDATE 2: The two Salon movie reviewers discuss the violence in this video. (One of them thinks highly of the movie, the other doesn't.) Whenever you get a reviewer talking of a violent sequence being "right on the edge" of what's acceptable to depict, (and that is from the guy who likes the movie,) it's almost certainly a sign that it is, in fact, highly objectionable and over that edge.
UPDATE 3: To my surprise, both David Stratton & Margaret Pomeranz on At the Movies liked it a lot, and hardly mentioned the violence. Oh well, just confirms my view that they are both fairly erratic reviewers. I can't say that I reliably find either of them align with my tastes.
I'm no fan of the whole superhero genre, despite quite liking the last Spiderman. But Anthony Lane's review of Watchmen certainly puts me off any idea of seeing it (and is pretty funny.) Some highlights:
One lord of the genre is a glowering, hairy Englishman named Alan Moore, the coauthor of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “V for Vendetta.” Both of these have been turned into motion pictures; the first was merely an egregious waste of money, time, and talent, whereas the second was not quite as enjoyable as tripping over barbed wire and falling nose first into a nettle patch...But here's the reason I won't see it:
“Watchmen,” like “V for Vendetta,” harbors ambitions of political satire, and, to be fair, it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex, and whose deepest fear—deeper even than that of meeting a woman who requests intelligent conversation—is that the Warren Commission may have been right all along...
The result is perfectly calibrated for its target group: nobody over twenty-five could take any joy from the savagery that is fleshed out onscreen, just as nobody under eighteen should be allowed to witness it. You want to see Rorschach swing a meat cleaver repeatedly into the skull of a pedophile, and two dogs wrestle over the leg bone of his young victim? Go ahead.Thanks, but no thanks.
UPDATE: here's Dana Stevens in Slate on the violence in the movie:
Whenever a fight begins (and there's one about every 15 minutes in this 160-minute movie), brace yourself for an abundance of narratively pointless bone-crunching, finger-twisting, limb-sawing, and skull-hacking. These extreme sports are often filmed in Matrix-style slow motion, a technique that tends to grind the story to a halt. Like the money shots in porn movies, Snyder's action scenes are an end in themselves—gratifying if you like that sort of thing, gross if you don't.Yet the movie is getting a 65% approval rating at Rottentomatoes. Do you ever get the feeling that reviewers (and the public at large,) have become just too immune to graphic movie violence?
UPDATE 2: The two Salon movie reviewers discuss the violence in this video. (One of them thinks highly of the movie, the other doesn't.) Whenever you get a reviewer talking of a violent sequence being "right on the edge" of what's acceptable to depict, (and that is from the guy who likes the movie,) it's almost certainly a sign that it is, in fact, highly objectionable and over that edge.
UPDATE 3: To my surprise, both David Stratton & Margaret Pomeranz on At the Movies liked it a lot, and hardly mentioned the violence. Oh well, just confirms my view that they are both fairly erratic reviewers. I can't say that I reliably find either of them align with my tastes.
GG gets noticed
Both Andrew Bolt and Michelle Grattan write about the, ahem, unusually high profile of Quentin Bryce as Governor-General.
Bolt finds her being far too political in her role, and I don't disagree.
You get the feeling from Michelle Grattan's column that even those with more left leaning sympathies may be feeling that Bryce's profile is higher than it should be.
She notes that (I shall paraphrase here), having already visited every country where an Australian is doing something useful, the GG has decided to visit countries where she'll have a hard time finding an Aussie outside of the consulate:
Let's hope the Governor-General is offered some odd traditional tribal food that she must eat to be polite. (The Ethiopians will probably serve her a gigantic feast when they assume from her disturbingly thin frame that Australia must be suffering a famine too. Aren't steak and dairy products allowed on the menu at Yarralumla?) I'll be looking for the close up of her grimace at the official gallery, where's it's all Quentin all the time.
But seriously, is someone going to start questioning the travel costs for this Governor-General, and the utility of this trip in particular?
Bolt finds her being far too political in her role, and I don't disagree.
You get the feeling from Michelle Grattan's column that even those with more left leaning sympathies may be feeling that Bryce's profile is higher than it should be.
She notes that (I shall paraphrase here), having already visited every country where an Australian is doing something useful, the GG has decided to visit countries where she'll have a hard time finding an Aussie outside of the consulate:
Sounds like a Rudd vanity project in reality.Africa? That's right. Less than a year into the job, Bryce this month embarks on a seven-nation tour of the continent, including Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Ethiopia (with stopovers, the total is nine countries).
It might seem an odd destination for an Australian governor-general so early in her term. But it is all part of the Rudd Government's Africa strategy. This has two drivers.
First, Africa is seen as an area neglected by Australia for many years (Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke were Africanists — but that was a long time ago). Second — and very pertinently — the Government is lobbying intensively for a United Nations Security Council seat, and there are more than 50 African votes.
Bryce's African trip is tailored to the Government's foreign policy. In effect, she's an envoy at the highest level.
Let's hope the Governor-General is offered some odd traditional tribal food that she must eat to be polite. (The Ethiopians will probably serve her a gigantic feast when they assume from her disturbingly thin frame that Australia must be suffering a famine too. Aren't steak and dairy products allowed on the menu at Yarralumla?) I'll be looking for the close up of her grimace at the official gallery, where's it's all Quentin all the time.
But seriously, is someone going to start questioning the travel costs for this Governor-General, and the utility of this trip in particular?
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Pot meets kettle
The Age Blogs: Waste of Space: All Men Are Liars
Why on earth does Fairfax continue to run the Sam de Brito blog when he churns out nasty posts like this?
Why on earth does Fairfax continue to run the Sam de Brito blog when he churns out nasty posts like this?
Lock him out
Rebel Catholic priest hopes for positive mediation - ABC News
The more he speaks, the more he appears to be an offensive goose who should be locked out of "his" church.
I refer to Peter Kennedy, sacked priest of St Mary's South Brisbane, whose idea of mediation is not only getting his own way, but punishing those who dared point out to the Church that he was no longer acting like a Catholic:
The more he speaks, the more he appears to be an offensive goose who should be locked out of "his" church.
I refer to Peter Kennedy, sacked priest of St Mary's South Brisbane, whose idea of mediation is not only getting his own way, but punishing those who dared point out to the Church that he was no longer acting like a Catholic:
Where are the flying monkeys when you need them?A mediation process involving solicitors for Father Kennedy is expected to begin next week.
Father Kennedy says he is hopeful of a positive outcome, but until it is finished, he is not going anywhere.
"The realistic outcome would be for me to be reinstated by the Archbishop as the administrator, the vigilantes who reported me to Rome be disciplined and I particularly and the community should be found not to be guilty of denying Catholic doctrine," he said.
How not to endear yourself to the French
Roger Cohen: One France is enough - International Herald Tribune
Roger Cohen worries that America is being turned into France MkII by Obama's policies (although he blames Bush for the initial problem):
Roger Cohen worries that America is being turned into France MkII by Obama's policies (although he blames Bush for the initial problem):
He should have just gone all the way and incorporated the phrase "cheese eating surrender monkeys".I lived for about a decade, on and off, in France and later moved to the United States. Nobody in their right mind would give up the manifold sensual, aesthetic and gastronomic pleasures offered by French savoir-vivre for the unrelenting battlefield of American ambition were it not for one thing: possibility.
You know possibility when you breathe it. For an immigrant, it lies in the ease of American identity and the boundlessness of American horizons after the narrower confines of European nationhood and the stifling attentions of the European nanny state, which has often made it more attractive not to work than to work. High French unemployment was never much of a mystery.
Americans, at least in their imaginations, have always lived at the new frontier; French frontiers have not shifted much in centuries.
On attitudes to drugs
Who are the addicts, the victims or their families? | Melanie Reid - Times Online
This article talks about a couple of notable drug cases in the UK at the moment, including an awful one in which a toddler died at the hands of a mother's heroin addicted boyfriend. Reid writes:
Perhaps what is needed is absolute rigidity in the rules: such as addiction to certain drugs as a mother of any children under 5 means you've lost the kid, permanently. Maybe you could allow contact rights in the future (once out of addiction), and always be kept informed as to how the kid is doing. But you don't ever get the child back.
This article talks about a couple of notable drug cases in the UK at the moment, including an awful one in which a toddler died at the hands of a mother's heroin addicted boyfriend. Reid writes:
His mother sold her body for drugs while her son was dying from a fatal blow that ruptured his duodenum. The toddler, who had 40 injuries to his body, was then taken to a squalid drugs party, where he vomited brown liquid while, all around him, young addicts partied. They laughed at him being sick. Hours later he was dead. His killer was convicted on Tuesday.I bet that one of the practical problems with taking the child away would be that, as soon as it happened, the mother would claim she has broken up with the boyfriend, put herself on methadone, and then demand the child back. Or alternatively, if she takes a year to sort herself out, you have had the child bond with a foster family, only to be given back to the mother.Brandon was not on any at-risk register. Why should he have been, when social policy emphasises that drugs users be supported in their lifestyle, not told to wise up? From top to bottom in the existing system, that ethos rules.
Addicts are official victims. They are not regarded as people with a choice. The presumption, therefore, is on keeping their children at home with them, not removing them. Suggestions that contraception be a condition of receiving methadone for addicts caused an outcry in Scotland, with accusations about eugenics.
Which take precedence? The human rights of the infant born to the junkie, or the right of the junkie to have both lifestyle and children?
Perhaps what is needed is absolute rigidity in the rules: such as addiction to certain drugs as a mother of any children under 5 means you've lost the kid, permanently. Maybe you could allow contact rights in the future (once out of addiction), and always be kept informed as to how the kid is doing. But you don't ever get the child back.
Top post
Manne’s talking again about what bores him | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Top marks to Andrew Bolt for this post about Robert Manne's confusion as to whether or not he knows anything about economics.
Top marks to Andrew Bolt for this post about Robert Manne's confusion as to whether or not he knows anything about economics.
Anti toilet paper
Christian Wolmar: Let's wipe out toilet paper | guardian.co.uk
Much explicit talk about wiping bottoms in this Guardian column.
Clearly, he needs to travel to Japan to really appreciate bidet technology.
Last Christmas, I saw a stall in a shopping centre promoting a Korean brand of bidet attachment to fit on top of an existing toilet. I don't think it was Hyundai, but I forget the name. Cost was around a $1000 I think.
Maybe environmentalists could argue that this is a good use for Kevin Rudd's "stimulus".
If they took off around the world, maybe it could mean a bidet led economic recovery from the decades of malaise in Japan (and now Korea.) Or perhaps Australia could establish its own bidet manufacturing plants, using all those left over car assembly line employees. (Suggested company slogan for a bidet start up: "Leading from the rear".)
Just trying to be helpful...
Much explicit talk about wiping bottoms in this Guardian column.
Clearly, he needs to travel to Japan to really appreciate bidet technology.
Last Christmas, I saw a stall in a shopping centre promoting a Korean brand of bidet attachment to fit on top of an existing toilet. I don't think it was Hyundai, but I forget the name. Cost was around a $1000 I think.
Maybe environmentalists could argue that this is a good use for Kevin Rudd's "stimulus".
If they took off around the world, maybe it could mean a bidet led economic recovery from the decades of malaise in Japan (and now Korea.) Or perhaps Australia could establish its own bidet manufacturing plants, using all those left over car assembly line employees. (Suggested company slogan for a bidet start up: "Leading from the rear".)
Just trying to be helpful...
Labor not so good for aborigines
Without the will, the intervention is left without a way | The Australian
Paul Toohey reckons the improvements for Northern Territory aborigines have slowed and will continue to do so due to the Left's ideological opposition to the Howard intervention.
< esm >Gee, didn't see that coming. < dsm >*
* Engage/Disengage Sarcasm Mode
Paul Toohey reckons the improvements for Northern Territory aborigines have slowed and will continue to do so due to the Left's ideological opposition to the Howard intervention.
< esm >Gee, didn't see that coming. < dsm >*
* Engage/Disengage Sarcasm Mode
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Cultural difference noted
Cash handout? Stupid, wasteful idea, Japanese say
From the report:
A telephone poll indicates that 75% disapprove of the idea.
In Australia last month, 57% of people surveyed by Newspoll approved the stimulus package (including cash handouts of $900.) (Well, they thought it would be good for the economy, at least.)
Take now, pay later.
From the report:
Prime Minister Taro Aso is touting a one-time cash handout of 12,000 yen as the centerpiece of a stimulus package to revive the world’s second-largest economy, mired in one of its worst slumps since World War II.(That's about $190 AUD by the way.)
But polls show that most Japanese oppose the idea—though many confess they’ll take the money anyway.
They argue that most people will just save the money, not spend it. Others say it’s a shortsighted plan that exacerbates the government’s ballooning budget deficit.
A telephone poll indicates that 75% disapprove of the idea.
In Australia last month, 57% of people surveyed by Newspoll approved the stimulus package (including cash handouts of $900.) (Well, they thought it would be good for the economy, at least.)
Take now, pay later.
No questions please
Look, I'll only post this if everyone promises not to make any joke-y comment about why I was reading a CSIRO journal's review of the new edition of "The Joy of Sex". (It is indeed the second time I have mentioned that book.)
OK? You promised.
Anyhow, here's the most curious bit from the review:
I wonder if Julia Gillard knows about this?
OK? You promised.
Anyhow, here's the most curious bit from the review:
As a long standing sex educator, researcher and therapist, I have learned new snippets from this book, including the use of ear lobe manipulation and the big toe as a tool for full sexual satisfaction and orgasm.The review does not further elaborate.
I wonder if Julia Gillard knows about this?
Too much information, Rod
Thirteen, Alfie? I’d almost given up on sex by the age of 13 | The Spectator
What to make of Rod Liddle's column in the Spectator in which he recalls his youthful sex life which started at 12? He can't quite understand the uproar over "Alfie", although he does ignore the point that young Alfie may be 13, but looks about 9. If he looked older than his age, the tabloid photos would not have attracted half as much attention.
I did note a few months back that reading books such as Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs does at least remind one that young teenage sex did take place in the 40's and 50's as well as now.
Still, I can't help but be a little irritated by the confession of youthful illicit activities (whether they be sexual or related to drugs, alcohol, etc) by the middle aged and relatively successful in life.
I know that there are not many 12 year olds reading the Spectator or Clive James and thinking to themselves "well if they did it, I may as well too." But there's something hypocritical about public and humorous confession of behaviour which they would not have wanted their own child imitating that annoys me in any event.
What to make of Rod Liddle's column in the Spectator in which he recalls his youthful sex life which started at 12? He can't quite understand the uproar over "Alfie", although he does ignore the point that young Alfie may be 13, but looks about 9. If he looked older than his age, the tabloid photos would not have attracted half as much attention.
I did note a few months back that reading books such as Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs does at least remind one that young teenage sex did take place in the 40's and 50's as well as now.
Still, I can't help but be a little irritated by the confession of youthful illicit activities (whether they be sexual or related to drugs, alcohol, etc) by the middle aged and relatively successful in life.
I know that there are not many 12 year olds reading the Spectator or Clive James and thinking to themselves "well if they did it, I may as well too." But there's something hypocritical about public and humorous confession of behaviour which they would not have wanted their own child imitating that annoys me in any event.
Babies make us nicer
Basics - In a Helpless Baby, the Roots of Our Social Glue - NYTimes.com
A primatologist argues that:
A primatologist argues that:
...human babies are so outrageously dependent on their elders for such a long time that humanity would never have made it without a break from the great ape model of child-rearing. Chimpanzee and gorilla mothers are capable of rearing their offspring pretty much through their own powers, but human mothers are not.The difference this makes, she argues, is that humans developed a comparatively good temperament. Sounds vaguely plausible, but the main reason I wanted to do a post about this is because of the odd hypothetical example she gives:
...our status as cooperative breeders, rather than our exceptionally complex brains, helps explain many aspects of our temperament. Our relative pacifism, for example, or the expectation that we can fly from New York to Los Angeles without fear of personal dismemberment. Chimpanzees are pretty smart, but were you to board an airplane filled with chimpanzees, you “would be lucky to disembark with all 10 fingers and toes still attached,” Dr. Hrdy writes.So be warned: never fly Chimp Air, no matter how cheap the fare.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
It gives me great pleasure...
Regular readers could guess how happy it would make me to see David Byrne appearing on Colbert Report. (The answer for irregular readers: very.)
(Honestly, it is really is a very relaxed and enjoyable interview of the Colbert variety.)
You can then watch Byrne performing the chair choreography song I like from his new CD.
(Honestly, it is really is a very relaxed and enjoyable interview of the Colbert variety.)
You can then watch Byrne performing the chair choreography song I like from his new CD.
Important stem cell news
It's good that the use of embryos for stem cell experiments or therapy may turn out to be unnecessary, although I still suspect that much of the promise of stem cell therapy as whole has been oversold.
Discover magazine explains more.
Discover magazine explains more.
Wine wins one, loses one
Drinking wine lowers risk of Barrett's esophagus, precursor to esophageal cancer:
Drinking one glass of wine a day may lower the risk of Barrett's Esophagus by 56 percent... Barrett's Esophagus is a precursor to esophageal cancer, the nation's fastest growing cancer with an incidence rate that's jumped 500 percent in the last 30 years.I find this a little surprising, given the bigger news of last week:
Low to moderate alcohol consumption among women is associated with a statistically significant increase in cancer risk and may account for nearly 13 percent of the cancers of the breast, liver, rectum, and upper aero-digestive tract combined...
Giant horse madness
Many Just Say Neigh to ‘Blue Mustang’ at Denver Airport - NYTimes.com
From the report:
Real horses are dangerous, but even as statues, they still manage to kill. As the NYT explains about that Denver blue horse:
The New York Times also notes this odd consequence of the horse:
From the report:
A statue of a giant male horse — electric-eyed, cobalt blue and anatomically correct — was installed in February 2008 on the roadway approach to the terminal, and it is freaking more than a few people out.What is it with artists and giant horses? As was recently noted here, England is to get an "angel" in the form of a giant horse statue.
Real horses are dangerous, but even as statues, they still manage to kill. As the NYT explains about that Denver blue horse:
Haters of this work say that “Blue Mustang,” as it is formally known, by the artist Luis Jiménez (killed in 2006 when a section of the 9,000-pound fiberglass statue fell on him during construction), is frightening, or cursed by its role in Mr. Jiménez’s death, or both.I keep telling people that horses are evil, but do they listen?
The New York Times also notes this odd consequence of the horse:
A story that features both evil horses and underground aliens: that's quite a rarity.... the controversy has also stirred up people in other ways. Conspiracies have floated around the Internet for years about secret bunkers or caverns beneath the terminals at the Denver airport. Symbols of Freemasonry are also said to abound on airport floors and walls.
“It’s brought out the conspiracy theorists who think there are aliens living under the airport,” said Patricia Calhoun, the editor of Westword, an alternative weekly paper in Denver
LP finally does St Mary's
I was wondering when Mark Bahnisch would make a comment on the renegade parish of St Mary's South Brisbane, given his Catholic background. Finally he has posted about it, and (surprisingly) in the comments section there is moderately voiced discussion between him and Currency Lad (amongst others) about the issues and matters liturgical.
I was a little surprised to see that the parish is not even to Mark's liberal tastes, and he also notes the peculiarity of why a priest such as Father Kennedy (who makes comments sounding as if he doesn't even believe in a "real" God anymore) wants to remain within the Catholic fold. This must be a sign that the parish is doomed.
UPDATE:
By the way, it would appear likely that Peter Kennedy, and [one suspects] many of those in the congregation at St Mary's, are non-realists when it comes to belief in God. Non-realism gets a decent explanation here. A key point from that link is this:
As I said once at CL's blog, the real fight within Christianity in the coming decades is going to be between adherents to realism and the growing band of non-realists.
I was a little surprised to see that the parish is not even to Mark's liberal tastes, and he also notes the peculiarity of why a priest such as Father Kennedy (who makes comments sounding as if he doesn't even believe in a "real" God anymore) wants to remain within the Catholic fold. This must be a sign that the parish is doomed.
UPDATE:
By the way, it would appear likely that Peter Kennedy, and [one suspects] many of those in the congregation at St Mary's, are non-realists when it comes to belief in God. Non-realism gets a decent explanation here. A key point from that link is this:
We should give up all ideas of a heavenly or supernatural world-beyond. Yet, despite our seeming scepticism, we insist that non-realist religion can work very well as religion, and can deliver eternal happiness.Seems that for non realists, "eternal" gets a just as rubbery a definition as "God". It's basically a philosophy of re-defining away those elements of religion you can no longer believe in.
As I said once at CL's blog, the real fight within Christianity in the coming decades is going to be between adherents to realism and the growing band of non-realists.
Nothing like bad timing
While glancing through a (better than usual quality) table of half price books at a suburban bookshop yesterday, I found "Burn: the Epic Sory of Bushfire in Australia" by ABC favourite Paul Collins (better known for his commentary on religion.) It was published in 2006.
It must be annoying to find, just when your history book is suddenly all relevant, it's being flogged off on the cheap. Maybe there's a market for a revised edition now?
Anyhow, Paul Collins was interviewed on the ABC recently about his take on the recent events. It's an interesting read.
It must be annoying to find, just when your history book is suddenly all relevant, it's being flogged off on the cheap. Maybe there's a market for a revised edition now?
Anyhow, Paul Collins was interviewed on the ABC recently about his take on the recent events. It's an interesting read.
Do nothing til 2020?
Over at Unleashed, Alan Moran from the IPA has a reasonable article explaining some of the pros and cons of carbon tax Vs emissions trading scheme. (He leans towards a carbon tax.)
However, his controversial conclusion is this:
At one level, this makes sense, in that Australia's overall contribution to CO2 is so low anyway. But if the real global problem is turning around the carbon producing juggernauts of China and India, putting off a decision until 2020 is hardly going to encourage them to start taking faster action now.
Meanwhile, the global economic crisis should have the contradictory effects of reducing emissions for now, but also making it harder to fund the research and development needed to get really serious changes to energy production.
Life is complicated.
However, his controversial conclusion is this:
One key outcome of the Treasury modelling offers a particularly promising policy approach. This is the Treasury estimate of the costs of doing nothing to 2020 and then catching up with the 2050 target thereafter should the need and achievability of such action prove necessary. That cost is put at 0.3 per cent of GDP by 2050.
Even if this is not overstated, 0.3 per cent of GDP seems a reasonable insurance policy price to pay rather than imminently embarking on measures that will be in the White Paper's words, "the most significant structural reform of the economy since the 1980s". By 2020 we will be clearer on the need for emission reduction policies and will, presumably, have access to all the technological advances that Treasury claim will be forthcoming.
At one level, this makes sense, in that Australia's overall contribution to CO2 is so low anyway. But if the real global problem is turning around the carbon producing juggernauts of China and India, putting off a decision until 2020 is hardly going to encourage them to start taking faster action now.
Meanwhile, the global economic crisis should have the contradictory effects of reducing emissions for now, but also making it harder to fund the research and development needed to get really serious changes to energy production.
Life is complicated.
One seriously strange fish
This blog needs something interesting to look at again, and this is the best I can up with at the moment: a very weird looking fish with a transparent head and dopey looking eyes.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Links clean up and additions
This post is just to remind me of some of the websites I want to add to my blog. It's well overdue a bit of a clean out. I'll get around to editing the blog soon enough, and anyone who has any other suggestions to sites I might like, let me know.
My additions to come (more may be added when I remember then again): Backreaction (physics blog); Dezeen (architecture and design); Air and Space Magazine; Bravenewclimate; Watts Up with That; Modern Mechanix blog; Treehugger; Marohasy.
Big Hollywood.
My additions to come (more may be added when I remember then again): Backreaction (physics blog); Dezeen (architecture and design); Air and Space Magazine; Bravenewclimate; Watts Up with That; Modern Mechanix blog; Treehugger; Marohasy.
Big Hollywood.
Near miss noted
Crikey - Sky not falling, just passing quite close
An "intruder" asteroid was detected by Australian comet hunter Rob McNaught at an observatory on Siding Spring Mountain on Friday night and will have a close encounter with Earth at about 1am tomorrow.
The object, estimated to be around 35-60 metres at its widest, is similar in size to the dead comet shard that exploded with the force of a large hydrogen bomb over a then largely uninhabited region of central Siberia on 30 June 1908.
This time there will be no collision, but the object catalogued as 2009 DD45 will come as close as around 63,000 kilometres from the earth’s surface somewhere over the Pacific west of Tahiti.
Ready for your close up, Your Excellency?
Glenn Milne informed us on the weekend that Governor-General Quentin Bryce has, for reasons unknown, been requesting (and getting) briefings from government officials including the head of the Defence Force, the head of Foreign Affairs, and Treasury. This is not normal, apparently:
But even before this weekend's news, I had been meaning to point readers towards the gallery section of the Governor-General's website. I would be curious to know who selects the photos there, as it seems that under Quentin Bryce's reign there has been a significantly increased emphasis on having her appear, if at all possible, in every single photo. (There are very few exceptions.)
Now of course, any gallery of the activities of an GG is going to mainly feature scenes in which the he or she appears. But try this: go to the archives and compare, say, the 2007 photos of our last Governor-General to those of Quentin Bryce. Under Michael Jeffery, you will find quite a few photos of other people without the GG being in shot. (There are a couple of "Santa" photos too; if one ever appears while Quentin Bryce is there, I would be looking very closely at the eyes to check that it isn't her.)
Back to the current photo selections: the one from 9 November 2008 in particular (see a full-sized version here) makes it seem that there is a distinct emphasis now on Governor-General herself, rather than the office.
Not very endearing for this reader, at least.
A spokeswoman confirmed the official briefings by three departmental heads was the first of its kind in the 107-year history of the office.If I were the suspicious type who found this Governor-General kind of irritating (oh, wait a minute, that is me) I would say that it sounds something like a reverse palace coup in the planning. I suspect Bill Shorten (still dating the GG's daughter, I assume) may be installed as first Australian Emperor if the Labor Party loses the next election. (Remember you heard it here first, unless someone at Andrew Bolt's has already noted this.)
But even before this weekend's news, I had been meaning to point readers towards the gallery section of the Governor-General's website. I would be curious to know who selects the photos there, as it seems that under Quentin Bryce's reign there has been a significantly increased emphasis on having her appear, if at all possible, in every single photo. (There are very few exceptions.)
Now of course, any gallery of the activities of an GG is going to mainly feature scenes in which the he or she appears. But try this: go to the archives and compare, say, the 2007 photos of our last Governor-General to those of Quentin Bryce. Under Michael Jeffery, you will find quite a few photos of other people without the GG being in shot. (There are a couple of "Santa" photos too; if one ever appears while Quentin Bryce is there, I would be looking very closely at the eyes to check that it isn't her.)
Back to the current photo selections: the one from 9 November 2008 in particular (see a full-sized version here) makes it seem that there is a distinct emphasis now on Governor-General herself, rather than the office.
Not very endearing for this reader, at least.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Perfectly apt, really
Imagine ... Lennon's classic played on church bells
Apt because it is to be performed in an Anglican cathedral.
Apt because it is to be performed in an Anglican cathedral.
Opinion Dominion explains...
It's war: minister takes aim at defence | smh.com.au
Our Defence Minister thinks his department is "at times incompetent".
No doubt it is. The problem is that, at least as far as the uniform side of the fence is concerned, they expect people who may be quite good and competent at one job (flying a plane, being an engineer or battlefield tactician) to be sensible and competent in another role they never really intended taking on when they joined (management of personnel, running a quasi-judicial system for disciplinary breaches, conducting fair internal enquiries.)
Time and again, you can see a person who may have been quite good at his or her original job making a complete hash of the more generalist duties that certain positions may require. It's not for lack of attempted training and assessment; Defence spends an inordinate amount of time on management training, and assessment is continual. It's just that some people with good technical skills in some areas just don't seem to be able to engage common sense when it comes to other areas.
It's often truly puzzling as to how some really bad decisions can be made by uniform men or women who are clearly not dumb. Of course, this also means that Defence then has to spend an inordinate amount of time on internal review of such decisions.
I don't know the answer; maybe its inherent in having a relatively small defence force. But it is still discouraging.
Our Defence Minister thinks his department is "at times incompetent".
No doubt it is. The problem is that, at least as far as the uniform side of the fence is concerned, they expect people who may be quite good and competent at one job (flying a plane, being an engineer or battlefield tactician) to be sensible and competent in another role they never really intended taking on when they joined (management of personnel, running a quasi-judicial system for disciplinary breaches, conducting fair internal enquiries.)
Time and again, you can see a person who may have been quite good at his or her original job making a complete hash of the more generalist duties that certain positions may require. It's not for lack of attempted training and assessment; Defence spends an inordinate amount of time on management training, and assessment is continual. It's just that some people with good technical skills in some areas just don't seem to be able to engage common sense when it comes to other areas.
It's often truly puzzling as to how some really bad decisions can be made by uniform men or women who are clearly not dumb. Of course, this also means that Defence then has to spend an inordinate amount of time on internal review of such decisions.
I don't know the answer; maybe its inherent in having a relatively small defence force. But it is still discouraging.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Local food in Japan
This is a feature of Japanese towns and cities that I have often noticed as being quite different from most Western cities:
"Locally grown for local consumption" is a common practice in many cities in Japan. Small plots of urban land dedicated to farming can be found in cities of all sizes. Kunio Tsubota of the Kyushu University Asia Centre writes in Urban Agriculture in Asia: Lessons from Japanese Experience "The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) estimates that about 1.1 million hectares of farmland exist in "urban-like areas" and are producing ¥2.6 trillion worth of products."Tsubota states that municipalities desire some farmland in urbanized areas because the land provides open areas necessary for emergencies, residents don’t want buildings constructed on green spaces, and that it’s more cost effective to grow crops than to convert urban farm plots into parks, and then maintain the parks.
One thing I have noticed, though, is that a lot of these Japanese urban farms may be right beside busy roads, and I wonder whether car and truck exhausts so close leaves a residue on fruit and veggies. (I guess it would just wash off anyway.)
There are parts (but getting smaller over the years) of some Brisbane suburbs which still contain small market farms. In fact, fruit and vegetables brought in some of the Vietnamese dominated shops, which I think get their stuff from such local farms, can be incredibly cheap compared to the supermarket. We usually get our pork from a "pork butcher" that seems to supply all the local restaurants too, and is always cheaper than the supermarket.
Urban farming therefore makes some sense, doesn't it? (As does living near asian migrant areas!)
Further to that Tarantino post...
A few posts back I had a link to a Guardian blog which embedded the ugly trailer for Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (yes, that spelling is apparently correct.)
The trailer is also on Youtube, but this time it has the Motion Picture Association of America preview rating at the start, which says the preview is "Suitable for All Audiences".
Are they mad?
Probably as mad as Quentin Tarantino, who thought that Kill Bill was a film that would be quite fun for boys and girls above the age of 12.
Given that he displays an emotional age of a 13 year old boy (and an unpleasant one at that,) I shouldn't be surprised. (Look at how juvenile most of the comments following any Tarantino clip on Youtube are as well.)
That young men should be getting excited about such a splatter-fest film is not a good sign. The only positive thing is that critics have become cynical of Tarantino's endless repetition of his one trick oeuvre.
The trailer is also on Youtube, but this time it has the Motion Picture Association of America preview rating at the start, which says the preview is "Suitable for All Audiences".
Are they mad?
Probably as mad as Quentin Tarantino, who thought that Kill Bill was a film that would be quite fun for boys and girls above the age of 12.
Given that he displays an emotional age of a 13 year old boy (and an unpleasant one at that,) I shouldn't be surprised. (Look at how juvenile most of the comments following any Tarantino clip on Youtube are as well.)
That young men should be getting excited about such a splatter-fest film is not a good sign. The only positive thing is that critics have become cynical of Tarantino's endless repetition of his one trick oeuvre.
Mad grandmother
BBC NEWS | Americas | US fortune 'not solely for dogs'
Talking about the $8 billion estate of the late Leona Helmsley, the article notes:
Talking about the $8 billion estate of the late Leona Helmsley, the article notes:
How do you spend even $2 million on a dog? Diamond encrusted collars?Helmsley also left $12m to her pet dog, Trouble, while explicitly leaving out two of her grandchildren.
A Manhattan judge later reduced the trust fund for the nine-year-old Maltese to $2m and the grandchildren received $6m each.
On David Cameron's loss
A lesson for us all in a short life, well lived | Libby Purves - Times Online
Libby Purves writes very well about this.
Libby Purves writes very well about this.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
High speed skepticism
Expanding broadband to bail out economies - International Herald Tribune
This article notes:
Of course, I like high speed internet as much as the next time wasting internet junky, and it's nice to develop it for rural populations. It's the claimed benefits to the economy that I doubt, especially when it's just about ramping up speed to cities which already have relatively good speeds. At least one company in France has a similar view:
This article notes:
In recent weeks, the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Finland have all included measures to expand broadband access and to bolster connection speeds in their planned economic stimulus packages. Australia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Japan and South Korea have announced separate broadband plans, according to a compilation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development...
While analysts agree that investing in communications technologies makes economies more competitive, they are skeptical about whether the promised gains will materialize quickly enough to make the spending packages - ranging from €11 million, or $14 million, in Hungary to $7 billion in the United States - effective recession-busters.Indeed. Count me as a skeptic when it comes to claims about how high speed internet to the likes of the back of Bourke is going to supercharge the Australian economy. According to the article:
...investments in telecommunications typically generate positive returns, said Olivier Pascal, an analyst at Analysys Mason, a consulting firm. Complex economic models show that every $1 spent on network improvements increases the gross domestic product by $1.30, he said. And that does not include the increases in productivity that such investments generate, he added.When I can download lunch, print it out at my desk and eat it, I'll be a little less skeptical.He said that the same models showed that "allocating spending to telecoms will create far more jobs than giving it to, say, agriculture."
Of course, I like high speed internet as much as the next time wasting internet junky, and it's nice to develop it for rural populations. It's the claimed benefits to the economy that I doubt, especially when it's just about ramping up speed to cities which already have relatively good speeds. At least one company in France has a similar view:
A top executive of Vivendi, which controls SFR, the owner of French fixed and mobile networks, said recently that faster connections would simply worsen the problem of online piracy, undermining Vivendi's music, movie and games businesses.
"Today, fiber serves no purpose," Philippe Capron, chief financial officer of Vivendi, was quoted as saying by a French business paper, La Tribune. "There is no new revenue stream and no supplemental service to offset the considerable investment. All that it does is to encourage the illegal downloading of films."
Let's hope so
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: the worst film ever made?
Go to the link to see the trailer for a film which, with any luck, will be the last ever made by QT. As the Guardian's Paul McInnes says:
Go to the link to see the trailer for a film which, with any luck, will be the last ever made by QT. As the Guardian's Paul McInnes says:
If this film isn't the work of a man who not only has nothing left to say, but is revelling in his ability to continue not saying it, then I don't know what is.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
File under "what the hell are they thinking?"
Spider-Man musical set for 2010
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will include the story of the superhero's origins and will feature music and lyrics by U2 members Bono and The Edge.This'll probably give Jason Soon nightmares.
Not happy Clive
Crikey - Hamilton: why we should stick to carbon trading regardless
Clive Hamilton's take on why Australia should forge ahead with an ETS is an interesting read. He does set out the differences in approach between it and a carbon tax pretty well.
Mind you, I still don't agree with his conclusion, which seems to be "yes I know, the ETS Rudd is giving us is useless anyway, but every other nation is going to use ETS so we have to use it too, regardless of its effectiveness."
There's also a surprising suggestion made:
UPDATE: as for the idea that people might help reduce actual emissions by buying up permits and taking them out of the hands of industry, Andrew Macintosh writes:
Clive Hamilton's take on why Australia should forge ahead with an ETS is an interesting read. He does set out the differences in approach between it and a carbon tax pretty well.
Mind you, I still don't agree with his conclusion, which seems to be "yes I know, the ETS Rudd is giving us is useless anyway, but every other nation is going to use ETS so we have to use it too, regardless of its effectiveness."
There's also a surprising suggestion made:
A case could be made to modify the CPRS so that those who want to do more than respond to higher energy prices can do so. In fact, they can do that already, by clubbing together and buying emission permits that they simply retire so the aluminium smelters can’t get their hands on them.Hamilton argues that the fluctuations in carbon price are something that just have to live with, because it is easier for politicians to handle:
I don't know about that line "Business has certainty but the environment pays for it." As I noted recently, I am swayed by the argument that sufficient business certainty is exactly what is needed to drive investment in a relatively rapid change to cleaner technology.Against this, a carbon tax fixes the price of pollution through the tax rate and leaves it to the market to decide the amount of pollution. Business has certainty but the environment pays for it. If Australia has a legally binding emissions cap, as we now do under the Kyoto Protocol and will have again under a Copenhagen agreement, then the government will be compelled to adjust the tax rate frequently and by large amounts as it tries to hit the target.
Imagine the politics of that, remembering that the GST rate is virtually cast in stone. Politically, it's infinitely easier to let the price fluctuate in the marketplace, with the peaks and troughs smoothed by business planners.
UPDATE: as for the idea that people might help reduce actual emissions by buying up permits and taking them out of the hands of industry, Andrew Macintosh writes:
....the extent of abatement through such voluntary action is likely to be tiny.The operating revenue of Australia’s four largest conservation organisations is around $60 million per annum. Let’s make the wildly optimistic assumption that all of this money is directed to buying and retiring permits, which will cost around $25 each and will equate to one tonne of CO2-e. This would reduce emissions by 2.4 million tonnes, or less than 0.5% of Australia’s annual total. This is hardly the type of rescue package the CPRS needs.
A contemplation on modern life - the forgotten hankerchief
Today I forgot to put a clean hankerchief in my pocket as I left the house.
When I was a child, I always had a kid-sized hankerchief in my pocket. It was used for my nose mainly, but were also pretty good at mopping up blood from skinned knees, blood noses, and lost baby teeth. When very young, if I was in need of taking a few coins to school, my mother used to tie them into the corner of the hankerchief, so they weren't jangling loose in my pocket. I used to like the idea that one could be used as a tourniquet if I was bitten by a snake or had a cut artery. They were, in short, very useful and quite comforting.
As a middle aged adult, I continue to find them useful. Now, tissues will be used during any heavy cold instead of carrying the phlegm in my pocket all day. However, when you have young children, a large kerchief in the pocket is still extremely useful for drying hands after visits to the toilet, mopping blood from their skinned knees, etc. Even when not with my own children, my habit on going to public toilets (especially if I am about to use my hands to eat) is to finish drying my hands with my hankerchief, and then use it to protect my now clean hand when opening the exit door. They remain a very useful thing to have where ever I am. I feel lost today due to my morning oversight.
It seems to me that somewhere between the 1960's and 2009, they fell out of fashion. I am reasonably sure that no children take them to school anymore. I doubt that many adults below the age of 40 use them much either. A couple of Christmas's ago, a nephew with 3 young children of his own saw me using my hankerchief to dry my kid's hands and said "that's a handy thing to have." Indeed.
The range of hankerchiefs available in shops now seems very small; the last time I looked, it seemed quite hard to find reasonable quality ones. They are either very cheap thin things, or quite expensive. The tissue has replaced it all, but really, I find them not even half as useful.
Why did the utility of the hankerchief get lost in the modern world? Or am I mistaken, and they are more popular than I know?
If, dear reader, you have a good hankerchief experience to share, please let me know. Their rightful place in the scheme of life needs to be restored, and the campaign may as well start here.
When I was a child, I always had a kid-sized hankerchief in my pocket. It was used for my nose mainly, but were also pretty good at mopping up blood from skinned knees, blood noses, and lost baby teeth. When very young, if I was in need of taking a few coins to school, my mother used to tie them into the corner of the hankerchief, so they weren't jangling loose in my pocket. I used to like the idea that one could be used as a tourniquet if I was bitten by a snake or had a cut artery. They were, in short, very useful and quite comforting.
As a middle aged adult, I continue to find them useful. Now, tissues will be used during any heavy cold instead of carrying the phlegm in my pocket all day. However, when you have young children, a large kerchief in the pocket is still extremely useful for drying hands after visits to the toilet, mopping blood from their skinned knees, etc. Even when not with my own children, my habit on going to public toilets (especially if I am about to use my hands to eat) is to finish drying my hands with my hankerchief, and then use it to protect my now clean hand when opening the exit door. They remain a very useful thing to have where ever I am. I feel lost today due to my morning oversight.
It seems to me that somewhere between the 1960's and 2009, they fell out of fashion. I am reasonably sure that no children take them to school anymore. I doubt that many adults below the age of 40 use them much either. A couple of Christmas's ago, a nephew with 3 young children of his own saw me using my hankerchief to dry my kid's hands and said "that's a handy thing to have." Indeed.
The range of hankerchiefs available in shops now seems very small; the last time I looked, it seemed quite hard to find reasonable quality ones. They are either very cheap thin things, or quite expensive. The tissue has replaced it all, but really, I find them not even half as useful.
Why did the utility of the hankerchief get lost in the modern world? Or am I mistaken, and they are more popular than I know?
If, dear reader, you have a good hankerchief experience to share, please let me know. Their rightful place in the scheme of life needs to be restored, and the campaign may as well start here.
Now they listen to him
Peter Schiff - Radio National Breakfast - 25 February 2009
There's no transcript available, but you can listen to what Peter Schiff said this morning about the fundamental debt problem of the USA. It sounded quite convincing and quite scary.
I see from his Wikipedia entry that he has taken to talking like a survivalist lately, which is a bit of a worry. But I don't know that that affects the credibility of his diagnosis of the problem.
There's no transcript available, but you can listen to what Peter Schiff said this morning about the fundamental debt problem of the USA. It sounded quite convincing and quite scary.
I see from his Wikipedia entry that he has taken to talking like a survivalist lately, which is a bit of a worry. But I don't know that that affects the credibility of his diagnosis of the problem.
Back to ocean acidification, greenhouse gas, etc
Here's a round up of interesting stuff about greenhouse issues, all in one post so that readers who don't believe in it can skip right over!
* There's a study out on Great Barrier Reef coral which indicates ocean acidification (lowering of the ocean pH) has already been underway for some time. (Seems very technical work, and I wouldn't be surprised if other scientists argue about this.)
* It seems that at least some molluscs get heavier shells with more CO2 in the water, rather than lighter. This paper is based on some tank experiments, and is pretty noteworthy because it seems to show how little is properly understood about the biological processes in calcification.
The authors note, however, that heavier shell production (or just normal shell production) in some species seems to be at a price. (Like less muscle, reproductive changes.) It's still not a very encouraging sign that everything is OK under increased ocean acidification. (In fact, I seem to recall some article that was about a period in prehistory when molluscs ruled the oceans. Must go looking for that.)
* Ross Gittens writes this morning about the Rudd ETS and Penny Wong's recent counterattack on the idea that individual efforts to "reduce carbon footprint" don't change emissions overall. Ross says Rudd and Wong are being misleading in their claims:
(As I understand it, a carbon tax can't be really based on a set target, so there is a degree of guesswork involved in knowing where to set the tax so as to achieve a desired level of reduction. However, monitoring its progress should be a much simpler task, I would have thought; and you remove a lot of the "money for nothing" aspects of permit trading and derivatives markets that make me so sceptical of ETS as a concept.)
* I asked over at Harry Clarke's blog last night, but don't know the answer yet. Has anyone done any extensive work on how a carbon tax would work? ETS has been in favour for so long, I don't think there has ever been much in the way of discussion in the popular media about how you could make a carbon tax work.
My assumption had been that a carbon tax would mean each country concentrates on assessing it's own emissions, and the effect the tax is having on them. However, I suppose it is possible to have a system of credits involved too, and if credits could be gained for overseas offsets, you would have much of the same rorting possible as has been shown under the present European ETS.
* There's a study out on Great Barrier Reef coral which indicates ocean acidification (lowering of the ocean pH) has already been underway for some time. (Seems very technical work, and I wouldn't be surprised if other scientists argue about this.)
* It seems that at least some molluscs get heavier shells with more CO2 in the water, rather than lighter. This paper is based on some tank experiments, and is pretty noteworthy because it seems to show how little is properly understood about the biological processes in calcification.
The authors note, however, that heavier shell production (or just normal shell production) in some species seems to be at a price. (Like less muscle, reproductive changes.) It's still not a very encouraging sign that everything is OK under increased ocean acidification. (In fact, I seem to recall some article that was about a period in prehistory when molluscs ruled the oceans. Must go looking for that.)
* Ross Gittens writes this morning about the Rudd ETS and Penny Wong's recent counterattack on the idea that individual efforts to "reduce carbon footprint" don't change emissions overall. Ross says Rudd and Wong are being misleading in their claims:
It's true only in an arithmetic sense that anything we do "contributes directly" to Australia meeting its emissions target. Everything contributes to the bottom line of the sum. But, because the bottom line is controlled under the scheme, any helpful contribution we might make just leaves more scope for others to make unhelpful contributions.So, the point that individual actions to live more frugally leaves more room for industry to increase CO2 is correct.When Wong says strong actions on our part help make it easier for governments to set lower emissions targets in future, the future she means is after 2020. As it stands, the only changes governments can make under the scheme are to the "trajectory" or path we travel to get to an unchanged destination level of emissions in 2020.
Why has the Government constructed its scheme in such a strange, off-putting way, which fact it has then wanted to conceal and obfuscate?
(As I understand it, a carbon tax can't be really based on a set target, so there is a degree of guesswork involved in knowing where to set the tax so as to achieve a desired level of reduction. However, monitoring its progress should be a much simpler task, I would have thought; and you remove a lot of the "money for nothing" aspects of permit trading and derivatives markets that make me so sceptical of ETS as a concept.)
* I asked over at Harry Clarke's blog last night, but don't know the answer yet. Has anyone done any extensive work on how a carbon tax would work? ETS has been in favour for so long, I don't think there has ever been much in the way of discussion in the popular media about how you could make a carbon tax work.
My assumption had been that a carbon tax would mean each country concentrates on assessing it's own emissions, and the effect the tax is having on them. However, I suppose it is possible to have a system of credits involved too, and if credits could be gained for overseas offsets, you would have much of the same rorting possible as has been shown under the present European ETS.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Burning offsets
Just wanted to note that in a post in November 2006 I wrote that, although I considered action against carbon dioxide emissions was warranted, one of the things of which I remained very sceptical was:
Wouldn't it make sense to do most of your planting in regions where bushfire is relatively rare - such as Queensland?
Carbon offset schemes which involve growing trees, especially if they are in areas where bushfires are a distinct possibility.As Andrew Bolt has noted, it would appear that at least some carbon offset plantings have been burnt in Victoria, with more under threat.
Wouldn't it make sense to do most of your planting in regions where bushfire is relatively rare - such as Queensland?
Great ideas in British education
Rod Liddle writes (but without links to the source of these stories, unfortunately) as follows:
+ Children at a junior school in Cambridgeshire were asked to write down as many rude and obscene words as they could think of, as part of some ill-conceived campaign against bullying. Parents weren’t too happy. One mother said she was disgusted “when my 10-year-old showed me an exercise book with words like c***sucker, d***head and fat arse rewarded with a tick from the teacher”.
Meanwhile, in a similarly fatuous attempt to combat Muslim extremism, pupils nationwide are to be asked to empathise with suicide bombers, to see the world as a nihilistic Islamic psychopath might see it.
Schools have long since given up on inculcating a sense of right and wrong in their pupils; the whole notion is outdated and, frankly, authoritarian. Which is something to be thankful for when a 12-year-old child screams “fat arse” at you and then detonates himself. At least he was able to empathise.
Rats in her underwear
We're the ones caught in the rat trap
Melanie Reid in The Times writes of an pretty "full on" rat infestation of their house:
Melanie Reid in The Times writes of an pretty "full on" rat infestation of their house:
The rats started stealing my clothes. One morning, I found my shirt jammed hard down a hole in the floor behind the washbasin in my bathroom. When I tugged it out it was shredded: the rats had been trying to drag it down to make a nest. They just miscalculated its size. Confronted with unassailable evidence, I did an audit of my underwear, and found half of it had disappeared. My husband, table-leg at the ready and a desperate look in his eye, swore that it wasn't him. Nightly, it seemed, the rats had been on forays to tug my discarded knickers and socks underground.Kind of amusing, from a distance.
Green and glowing
Nuclear power? Yes please... - The Independent
Nuclear power is increasingly back in favour:
Nuclear power is increasingly back in favour:
Britain must embrace nuclear power if it is to meet its commitments on climate change, four of the country’s leading environmentalists – who spent much of their lives opposing atomic energy – warn today...Mr Tindale describes his conversion as follows:
The four leading environmentalists who are now lobbying in favour of nuclear power are Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace; Lord Chris Smith of Finsbury, the chairman of the Environment Agency; Mark Lynas, author of the Royal Society’s science book of the year, and Chris Goodall, a Green Party activist and prospective parliamentary candidate.
“It was kind of like a religious conversion. Being anti-nuclear was an essential part of being an environmentalist for a long time but now that I’m talking to a number of environmentalists about this, it’s actually quite widespread this view that nuclear power is not ideal but it’s better than climate change,” he added.Australia, meanwhile, with lots of uranium, twiddles its thumbs.
Come one, come all
ROME MUST GO – ST MARY’S STAYS - Workers Bush Telegraph
The Courier Mail claimed that having an "estimated" 1500 people turn up at Mass with Peter Kennedy last weekend "may have dealt a blow" to the Archbishop's plans to remove the priest from the parish.
Apart from mild curiosity about the accuracy of that count (and noting that not many of them hung around for the afternoon's "rally"), it's worth pointing out that Peter Kennedy has not been shy about drumming up support from all quarters.
Have a look at the post above that appeared last week on Worker's Bush Telegraph, a website that seems devoted to things like organising protests against Starbucks, unconditional support for Hamas, etc.
The post is not by Kennedy, but he takes the opportunity in comments to invite everyone to come last Sunday, and "to bring all your friends and neighbours." (Religious affiliation is clearly optional.)
The comments are actually worth reading for the contribution of John T, who appears to be a local activist type (probably aboriginal?) who has some major issues as to why many people attend St Marys. It's worth pasting a big slab of it here:
The Courier Mail claimed that having an "estimated" 1500 people turn up at Mass with Peter Kennedy last weekend "may have dealt a blow" to the Archbishop's plans to remove the priest from the parish.
Apart from mild curiosity about the accuracy of that count (and noting that not many of them hung around for the afternoon's "rally"), it's worth pointing out that Peter Kennedy has not been shy about drumming up support from all quarters.
Have a look at the post above that appeared last week on Worker's Bush Telegraph, a website that seems devoted to things like organising protests against Starbucks, unconditional support for Hamas, etc.
The post is not by Kennedy, but he takes the opportunity in comments to invite everyone to come last Sunday, and "to bring all your friends and neighbours." (Religious affiliation is clearly optional.)
The comments are actually worth reading for the contribution of John T, who appears to be a local activist type (probably aboriginal?) who has some major issues as to why many people attend St Marys. It's worth pasting a big slab of it here:
Not every activist is so keen on the parish, then.I cannot understand why radicals and intellectuals have totally bought into this bullshit that St. Mary’s does such good work with the poor and oppressed, a narrative repeated in tonights 7.30 report as a key element of the church.
On Saturdays and Sundays a travelling show comes into South Brisbane. Like ants, the St. Mary’s congregation come from all over south east Queensland to have a special experience with each other and then they return to their communities. Hardly any of them are locals who are likeley to run into the poor and oppressed at the shop or have them knocking on their door asking for a cup of sugar.
These outsiders administer the biggest welfare agency in Brisbane, not just South Brisbane, that deals with homelessness. Micah is a government funded organisation that operates within government policies and programs regarding homelessness. It is government outsourcing.
While the social workers are administering their programs, the St. Mary’s community remains insulated from the poor and oppressed including those of the South Brisbane community just as church goers in every other congregation in Brisbane do. St. Vinnies, run by amongst the most conservative catholics, operates on a direct engagement between congregation members in each parish and the welfare clients. The congregation actually gets to meet the people they are helping which is more than what occurs with the St. Mary’s mode.
St. Mary’s is just another West End illusion that people from outside West End come to experience, just like the coffees shops are for people from all over Brisbane come to be part of the West End experience.
Keep Baz at bay
Will Hugh Jackman get Oscars call back?
Let's hope not.
For me, Hugh Jackman has a touch of the Mel Gibson's about him: a lot of people seem to like him, but for reasons I can't explain, I just don't care for anything he does.
Nearly everything about last night's Oscars seemed a little "off". The dance numbers were underwhelming, particularly the second one. (Jackman was too self-consciously ironic, and it seemed a huge waste of the number of dancers on stage.) But at least it brought with it some vindication when I found out that Baz Luhrmann was responsible. Keep that untalented bowerbird away from song and dance, please! (And movies too, while we are at it.)
For those of you who are, like me, obsessively keeping score on the number of bad reviews of Luhrmann's "Australia", (gee, I wonder why I don't have many readers) last weekend featured two new ones: in the Japan Times, and Greg Sheridan in the Australian. (The Japanese have a particular reason to take issue with the film, with its entirely fictional land invasion of an Australian island.)
The Luhrmann inspired tourism campaign is also copping recent criticism from the industry.
Can't he just take up painting or something?
Let's hope not.
For me, Hugh Jackman has a touch of the Mel Gibson's about him: a lot of people seem to like him, but for reasons I can't explain, I just don't care for anything he does.
Nearly everything about last night's Oscars seemed a little "off". The dance numbers were underwhelming, particularly the second one. (Jackman was too self-consciously ironic, and it seemed a huge waste of the number of dancers on stage.) But at least it brought with it some vindication when I found out that Baz Luhrmann was responsible. Keep that untalented bowerbird away from song and dance, please! (And movies too, while we are at it.)
For those of you who are, like me, obsessively keeping score on the number of bad reviews of Luhrmann's "Australia", (gee, I wonder why I don't have many readers) last weekend featured two new ones: in the Japan Times, and Greg Sheridan in the Australian. (The Japanese have a particular reason to take issue with the film, with its entirely fictional land invasion of an Australian island.)
The Luhrmann inspired tourism campaign is also copping recent criticism from the industry.
Can't he just take up painting or something?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Flying geeks denied
Journey's end for Flight Simulator
Here's an amusing take on Microsoft's announcement that they are (apparently) no longer going to be developing Flight Simulator beyond its present incarnation. I like this part:
Here's an amusing take on Microsoft's announcement that they are (apparently) no longer going to be developing Flight Simulator beyond its present incarnation. I like this part:
I wonder: was the product used by the 9/11 hijackers in addition to their "real"training?Of course, what every simmer dreams about is being called on to land an actual plane in an emergency. A trembling stewardess announces over the public address that both flyers upfront are suffering debilitating convulsions from the in-flight catering and has anyone flown an Airbus before?
"Er, not really but ….." you splutter.
You are the last hope and with increasing confidence and cool, you inform ground-control that the myriad of dials and gauges you face, once the ailing captain has been hauled from his seat, are second-nature. Eventually, you plop the aircraft on the runway with a couple of harmless bounces, just for dramatic effect, and applause from the passenger-cabin rings in your ears.
Is he a priest in any meaningful sense?
There was a remarkable article on Father Peter Kennedy, the sacked parish priest of St Mary's South Brisbane, in the Courier Mail Q Magazine on Saturday. (It looks like the website does not put up weekend articles until much later than they appear in print, so I will keep a look out for it. UPDATE: you should be able to read the article as a .pdf here.)
Essentially, Peter Kennedy appears to have been doubting his faith and/or the value of priesthood for much of the time he has been ordained, and in many respects sounds like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Another interesting profile of both Kennedy and the Archbishop was in The Australian over the weekend. (This one, however, does not delve into Kennedy's history so much, and argues that he mainly became radicalised as a result of some controversy while he was a prison chaplain in the 1980's. I think his disenchantment with the Church and priesthood comes well before that, however.) The article does make a good point, though:
It is also ridiculous to be taking such an attitude while at the same time threatening legal proceedings (in his own name, I presume) about unfair dismissal.
The Archbishop and Father Ken Howell are, I believe, being too kind in their response to this man who should have given up the priesthood as soon as he realised he was not really cut out for it in the 1960's or 70's. He would have been much happier being a social worker directly on the streets all of those years since then. I think it would be a serious mistake to let him co-celebrate mass with the new priest, even if "the community" were to allow it.
I am inclined to think (as Mild Colonial Boy suggested to my last post) that this will only be solved by physically closing the Church. Presumably, Kennedy and his mob will follow him to another premises, they can continue to think they are Catholic for all I care, and after 12 months the old building can be re-opened with another priest. The dispersal of much of the Kennedy emotionalism might ensure it can then be run without the current group staging a scene.
Essentially, Peter Kennedy appears to have been doubting his faith and/or the value of priesthood for much of the time he has been ordained, and in many respects sounds like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Another interesting profile of both Kennedy and the Archbishop was in The Australian over the weekend. (This one, however, does not delve into Kennedy's history so much, and argues that he mainly became radicalised as a result of some controversy while he was a prison chaplain in the 1980's. I think his disenchantment with the Church and priesthood comes well before that, however.) The article does make a good point, though:
Kennedy insists that St Mary’s is a community church that is acting in the spirit of Vatican II in being driven by the congregation. He parts company with Bathersby in that he believes the role of the priest is to help guide the congregation, not dictate to it.I have come to the view that he is incredibly disingenuous in nearly everything he says. His talk this weekend was that he would not enter into negotiation with the Archbishop because it was up to his parish "community" to negotiate about it, and anyway he already knows his community wants him. (Never mind that his idea of "community" for St Marys obviously does not extend to the "community" of the entire Roman Catholic Church.)
Yet here’s a contradiction: Kennedy insists that while St Mary’s is about the community rather than him, his presence there is vital. “This community will die when I leave,” he says. “After that, they will either appoint a priest who’ll toe the line and deliver exactly the Mass they want, which will mean a lot of people will leave, or it will be absorbed into another parish.”
It is also ridiculous to be taking such an attitude while at the same time threatening legal proceedings (in his own name, I presume) about unfair dismissal.
The Archbishop and Father Ken Howell are, I believe, being too kind in their response to this man who should have given up the priesthood as soon as he realised he was not really cut out for it in the 1960's or 70's. He would have been much happier being a social worker directly on the streets all of those years since then. I think it would be a serious mistake to let him co-celebrate mass with the new priest, even if "the community" were to allow it.
I am inclined to think (as Mild Colonial Boy suggested to my last post) that this will only be solved by physically closing the Church. Presumably, Kennedy and his mob will follow him to another premises, they can continue to think they are Catholic for all I care, and after 12 months the old building can be re-opened with another priest. The dispersal of much of the Kennedy emotionalism might ensure it can then be run without the current group staging a scene.
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