On trial for writing an opinion?

Obama remarks on torture memos leave open possibility of prosecution - Los Angeles Times

Like this makes sense:

Although President Obama opposes the prosecution of CIA operatives who carried out the most controversial interrogations of suspected terrorists during the Bush administration, Obama suggested today that he had not ruled out action against Justice Department officials who authorized the tactics....

Obama said that "with respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

Update: further interesting details on this in The Guardian version of the story:

The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said only three days ago that the administration did not favour prosecutions of those who had devised the policy, and Gibbs echoed that on Monday.

Obama's about-turn may reflect the sense of outrage, at least among US liberals, over further details of CIA interrogations that have emerged during the last few days, including the use of waterboarding against one detainee 183 times. Or it could be purely political, a retaliation for sniping against him by Cheney.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday night, Cheney said he was disturbed by the release of the previously classified memos. He called for the declassification of other memos that he said would illustrate the value of intelligence gained from the interrogations.

"I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country," he said.

Cheney has a point. Surely most people are surprised by the number of times some detainees were waterboarded. Unless you believe that individual CIA operatives just started doing it for fun (a wildly improbably assumption, given the amount of paperwork that appears to surround these cases), they clearly must have been under the impression that something was to be gained (or was being gained) in the process.

Of course, one of the common arguments against torture is that it does not produce reliable information in any event. But is that necessarily true? The CIA and intelligence services of all countries have a lot of experience in the field: do they like people to know how successful it can be?

There is probably a lot of information out there on the issue, but I don't have time to go looking for it now.

One other point I find curious about this whole matter is that, if the one of the interrogation "benefits" of waterboarding is that the victim thinks they are about to die, surely that aspect of it decreases over time if you've been subjected to it a dozen times and you still haven't died? Or does the psychological impact of it still increase over time, just out of fear of undergoing yet another round of an extremely unpleasant procedure?

Going back to Obama's flying the kite on Justice Department prosecutions, Powerline has this to say (and of course I agree):

The idea of prosecuting a lawyer because a wrote a legal analysis with which the current Attorney General disagrees is so outrageous that I can't believe it would be seriously considered.

UPDATE: some commentary on the issue of whether torture works.

I also tend to agree with Tigerhawk's take on this: if you have caught a terrorist who is prepared to kill thousands of civilians, it is surely helpful for him to at least believe that he is about to be tortured. Obama has effectively removed that fear, and that is not a good thing for the future security of his nation.

UPDATE 2: The New York Times reports that Obama's own intelligence director, Admiral Blair, supports the Dick Cheney position that important information was disclosed from waterboarding (or other techniques authorised by the Bush administration). I think we can assume Cheney was telling the truth.

Cats kill cute sea creatures

New research reveals extraordinary habits of rare Australian Snubfin dolphin

According to this article, research on the funny looking snub nosed dolphin (that lives off Queensland) shows that they can be killed by toxoplasma containing cat poop:

The concern for the snubfin dolphin follows the death of three Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins recovered around Townsville in the period 2000-2001 that were infected by Toxoplasma gondii - a parasite usually found in cat faeces that appears to have come from contaminated run-off.

In California, they have long believed that cat poo is killing sea otters.

Cat owners have a lot to answer for.

Oceans and Plimer

Most Australian readers would probably know already of the global warming skeptics excitement about a new hefty book by geologist Ian Plimer that (apparently) sets out with lots of footnotes his opinion as to why the great majority of climate scientists are wrong.

While we are waiting for some climate scientist types to review it in detail, I am curious as to whether he makes any attempt at addressing ocean acidification. As remarked here many times, this is an issue skeptics just like to wave away with a few dismissive snorts, and that's about the extent of their analysis. (Yes, I am aware of Plimer's previous short contributions to the issue, such as this one noted last year at Marohasy's blog. Anyone who has bothered to read about the issue can readily spot that this was a disingenuous attempt at dismissing it, and does not address the reasons why it is believed to be a serious problem regardless of the oceans surviving past periods of high atmospheric CO2.)

In fact, I haven't posted anything new about ocean acidification for a few weeks, but there have been quite a few papers of note, such as:

* some new calculations indicate that ocean "dead zones" will increase:

increases in carbon dioxide can make marine animals more susceptible to low concentrations of oxygen, and thus exacerbate the effects of low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean.

Brewer and Peltzer's calculations also show that the partial pressure of dissolved carbon dioxide gas (pCO2) in low-oxygen zones will rise much higher than previously thought. This could have significant consequences for marine life in these zones.

* (if I am reading this right) some lab tests indicate that phytoplankton in nutrient poor ocean areas (such as the Southern Oceans, which will be affected first by lower .pH) don't do well with increased CO2.

* A paper notes the wildly conflicting results of different lab tests on whether a certain type of phytoplankton will get heavier or lighter with more ocean acidification. However, even if they do in nature get heavier, they will not make a significant reduction in CO2 levels in the atmosphere:

...it should be recognized that the direct impact of calcification changes on atmospheric CO2 through the remainder of this century is relatively small compared to anticipated annual emissions as well as to other carbon cycle feedbacks.

(Hence, if AGW is true, you can't expect the carbon incorporating phytoplankton to save you.)

* more research indicating pteropods (which feed a lot of fish) don't do well with increased acidfication. The researchers note:

A decline of their populations would likely cause dramatic changes to the structure, function and services of polar ecosystems.

Not exactly cheery news.

Quantum fun

Avoid a future cataclysm: Forget the past - New Scientist

A quite bizarre but entertaining idea suggested by a physicist who has been thinking about "many worlds". The idea is hard to summarise here, and the article is short, but the ultimate point is this:

"If we could find a way to reset our knowledge of an impending disaster, we too could avoid it."

Would large amounts of alcohol do the trick? (Maybe it explains the remarkable ability of some drunks to take a tumble and get back up again.)

4WD heresy

Bligh backs drop in Fraser Island speed limit - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

On the weekend, there was yet another four wheel drive accident on the beach at Fraser Island. This has prompted the government to finally say that letting people drive on a beach at 100 km might just be a little too dangerous. Well, duh, as they say.

But: why the hell do we let the great sandy islands of South East Queensland have their beach serenity spoilt by 4WD's at all? I don't particularly care if inland sand roads are used to access beach-side camp sites, but to my mind Moreton Island and Fraser Island beaches have a large amount of their wilderness value spoilt by the never-ending flow of 4WD up and down their beaches. If you are camping with young children, there is always the worry that it is not particularly safe for them to be going between campsite and the water's edge, because they are literally wandering on a "road".

To my mind, this has been an incremental problem. In the early 1970's, when I first went to Moreton Island, not that many people had 4WD's, and it really did feel a pretty isolated spot. Now that every man and his dog has been able to buy one (mainly for the wife's school run and supermarket shopping, mind you) they spoil quite a lot of the pleasure of being there.

No one says this, of course, and tourism operators on Fraser would be up in arms at the suggestion. But if I ruled the country, there would be a ban on beach driving for nearly everyone; and for non rural areas, 4WDs would be taxed within an inch of their saleability anyway.

System failure

Mentally ill man raped, murdered daughter after warnings ignored | The Courier-Mail

A spectacularly tragic failure of the system to do any effective in the light of clear danger is detailed today:

THE state's largest hospital was warned, so were police and a doctor, but no one stopped a mentally ill man from taking a family holiday which ended with him raping and killing his 10-year-old daughter.

The man headed off on the fateful Bribie Island holiday with his four children after he was allowed to postpone a check-up with health authorities....

The Courier-Mail revealed in the days after the killing that the man had been released from the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital's mental health unit, where he had been under an involuntary treatment order, on December 21, 2007.

He had been admitted on December 8 after a manic episode in a shopping centre.

The man was allowed to postponea check-up with mental health workers scheduled for December 31. Late that night he ritualistically killed his daughter but spared her three younger siblings...

On December 30, the man's parents were so concerned about their son's behaviour, including a threat that "someone close to me is going to die tonight", that they contacted his GP...

On December 31, the RBWH was contacted by a former girlfriend of the man after he had gone to her home. The documents did not say whether the hospital took any action.

The man - who was found by the Mental Health Court to have been of unsound mind at the time of the murder - did not abide by the terms of his discharge. The judgment revealed he had stopped taking the antipsychotic drug, Risperidone, and resumed smoking large quantities of cannabis.

Um, just how many patients who are supposed to be taking anti-psychotics are allowed by anyone to supervise their children alone? I would have thought that this fact alone would have been reason for action.

Peter Kennedy has left the building

With a bit of TLC, priest's exile begins | The Australian

While I was down the coast, Peter Kennedy and his followers took the short walk down the road from Saint Mary's church to their new (temporary?) HQ at the Trades and Labor Council. Yes, it's like organised labor having it's very own church now. How cute.

Although Kennedy was looking all chipper on the TV news, I don't know that this reported comment should really give his congregation much encouragement:

"Our story, as it unfolds, will not change the church, nor will it change the world," Father Kennedy said. "But it is a political act which may give hope to those who feel excluded by the rules and regulations, the doctrines and dogmas, of the institutional church."

For a quite sarcastic take on events, have a read of this post at Coo-ee's Priory, (and this one) which note that Peter Kennedy may be over-estimating media interest in his private church now that the expected physical confrontation is (presumably) not going to happen:

"We are liberated now to speak out about the church. The media will come to us for our opinion from now on."

Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.

Weekend away

We went down to the Gold Coast on the weekend, where I took this typical photo:



The weather was pretty good, and autumn (or spring) are the best times to be on the beach in South East Queensland: you don't have quite the same worry about frying your skin within 10 minutes, and once your feet get used to it, the water is warm.

It seems that the Gold Coast is suffering from the GFC to some degree: there were a few noticeable closed restaurants and such around. Price-wise, it's also probably a good time to be looking at buying a holiday unit there, as I suspect that is the type of real estate that investors are currently having to sell in a hurry. (Yes, have a look at this search at realestate.com to see what you can buy at Broadbeach for under $300,000. Someone send me $250,000 in Paypal and I'll let you stay in my apartment for 4 weeks a year in perpetuity!)

Hold this space

Missing me? No, I thought not. In any case, there's stuff to post about, but no time 'til tonight.

Cheap real estate soon in Japan?

Japan birthrate fall world's No. 1 | The Japan Times Online

The productive population, or those aged 15 to 64, is expected to decline from 81.64 million in 2009 to 45.95 million in 2055.

A science fiction image

This video of a pair of lungs being kept "breathing" while awaiting transplant reminded me of one of Larry Niven's novels, "A Gift from Earth". More details of the point of the exercise are at Next Big Future.

Doesn't work for Madonna

Can We Reverse Aging By Changing How We Think?

Don't overlook refrigerators

Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Global Warming | Newsweek

Nothing terribly new in this interview with Steven Chu, except I hadn't heard of this before:

We now make refrigerators that are four times more energy-efficient than the refrigerators of 1975—for half the inflation-adjusted cost. The energy we save with these refrigerators is more than all of the wind and solar photovoltaic energy we produce in the United States today. Just refrigerators.

Chu claims a lot is achievable in energy efficient buildings:

..we haven't taken full advantage of the technologies that exist today. They haven't been integrated into making smarter buildings that can be 60, 80 percent more energy-efficient than existing buildings.

He says buildings use 40% of US energy. Sounds surprisingly high.

Hunger inspired post

My wife made very nice pizza last night, using the following:

bottle pizza sauce, pieces of fresh tomato, semi-dried capsicum, olives, anchovies, basil leaves, mozzarella, and (special ingredient) bits of old washed rind cheese well past its used by date.

Provided stinky cheese has not developed its own microbiological civilisation, small amounts of it on pizza are delicious.

[End of transmission to your subconscious.]

I wonder what my brain is up to now

Unconscious thought precedes conscious | Incognito | The Economist

Interesting article here on new research which suggests the brain solves problems by itself well before you are aware of it.

As the report notes, it's further extension of Libet's old research from the 1980's, that caused a philosophical stir at the time.

In some ways, I guess, the idea that the brain can work on a problem subconsciously is not uncomfortable. In fact, it's kind of handy to have a computer working in the background on an issue.

But on the other hand, the research does raise the issue of how much you really are "in control". Taken to an extreme, it encourages the idea that we are just automatons who simply live under the impression of having control. Hard to deal with the moral concept of responsibility for actions if that were true.

People had better still believe that there is still a bit of a mystery about consciousness, and that right action can be willed, otherwise the fate of humanity will be bleak indeed.

Everyone needs a hobby

Such as, sitting in a Japanese park dressed as a Nazi.

Forests not always so helpful

Dying trees may exacerbate climate change : Nature News

I have to reproduce a large part of this, because of Nature's silly way of putting stories under a paywall after a short time:

Forestry experts have again warned that climate change could transform forests from sinks to sources of carbon. The carbon storing capacity of global forests could be lost entirely if the earth heats up 2.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to a new report...

In a warmer world, subtropical and southern temperate forests such as those in the western United States, northern China, southern Europe, the Mediterranean and Australia will experience more intense and frequent droughts, increasing the incidence of fire and pests. This would lead to more carbon being released — a recent report in Science2 found that a 2005 drought in the Amazon basin released about 1.2 billion–1.6 billion tonnes of carbon (See 'Climate change crisis for rainforests').

The coniferous forests of Canada, Finland, Russia and Sweden that make up the boreal region are expected to experience more warming than forests in the equatorial zone. Although warmer temperatures could initially fuel a northward expansion of the forest, the short-term positive impacts would be cancelled out by damage from increased insect invasions, fires and storms.

The shift from sink to source is already happening. The mountain pine beetle has devastated the forests of western Canada. The outbreak currently covers 14 million hectares — roughly 3.5 times the size of Switzerland, says Allan Carroll, an insect ecologist with the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia. By 2020, the projected end of the outbreak, about 270 megatonnes of carbon will have been emitted to the atmosphere3. "That's the equivalent of five years of emissions from the entire transportation sector in Canada," says Carroll.

Noami and Hope

Naomi Klein on Obama and the rhetoric of hope | Comment is free | The Guardian

The somewhat nutty Naomi Klein writes a column that conservative Obama skeptics can take heart from.

A dubious honour

New Species Of Lichen Named After President Barack Obama

Lichen? How much pleasure does it give someone to be named after an inanimate bit of rock coating?

My competition of the day: what sort of newly discovered living creature should be named after Kevin Rudd?

Good grief

Gulfnews: Lawmakers call for 'moral police' revamp

OK, I admit it, Gulf News has become my irresistible source of amusement. (I had to give the Times of India a break after the Mumbai terrorist attack.)

It is a very, very different world in the Gulf countries. Today, for example, it reports on how the Saudi religious police are getting some criticism:

Several members of the Shura Council have come down heavily on the high handedness meted out by the members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice or the religious police.

They noted that some Commission members are exercising excessive powers that are not in their jurisdiction and are interfering in the private affairs of individuals. They accused panel members of acts like getting into individuals' mobile phone data, reckless chasing, and inspecting women to check if they were using perfumes that "disturb others", cutting off their hairs or wearing improper dress.

Well, I wouldn't mind having a security force that can deal with overpowering aftershave that you tend to find some European men wear. But we can agree with this:

Dr Abdullah Bukhari, a member of the Shura, vehemently criticised the acts of some Commission members in storming public or private places and inspecting personal belongings.

"Their chasing of women or taking into custody of those found without a blood relative [Mahram] are not right," he reminded

But what does the good doctor, who sounds like a modernising sort of chap, then say the religious police should be doing?:

"They should concentrate mainly on busting the rackets of drugs, black magicians, sorcerers or the like rather than entangling in private affairs of individuals," he said.

Oh.

And further on the issue of child marriage, the situation is not good in Yemen:

The early marriage is a phenomenon in Yemen with respect to males and females, and it's widespread in both rural and urban areas, the report added.

Some 48 per cent of females under 15 years old get married early, and about 45 per cent of males and females get married when they are about 10 years, the report said.

Toy shops must love weddings there.

They are trying to change the law, but meeting religious objections:

A controversy has been going on in Yemen since February 11, 2009, when some Islamist MPs supported by some clerics refused as not Islamic the 17 years as the minimum age of marriage although it was voted for by the majority of the House of Representatives.

I suppose when the founder of your religion had a child bride himself, it does make for an issue.

Free for all

Gizmo's - Gizmo's Freeware Reviews | Gizmo's Freeware

The news isn't inspiring me for any post at the moment, so instead I'll just mention that I recently found the above handy website for finding just the right freeware for nearly any purpose.

It's well organised, covers all sorts of freeware (eg, open source and older versions of products that companies are now giving away for free), and reviews their features. Readers get to make their own comments and recommendations as well. (I know other sites allow for reader reviews, but this site just seems much better organised and has a more personal touch in its reviews.)

Very satisfying.

Tempting fate

Titanic cruise to mark anniversary of ship's fateful voyage - Telegraph

The Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, whose parent company Harland and Wolff built the Titanic, has been chosen for the voyage.

It will carry 1,309 passengers - the same number that sailed on the fateful voyage - on the same route as the Titanic, leaving Southmapton in early April 2012 before docking at the Irish port of Cobh (formerly Queenstown), where the Titanic made its final call on April 11, 1912.

The cruise will continue to follow the route of the Titanic and, on April 14, it will arrive at the exact location the vessel sank some 100 years before, where there will be a special memorial ceremony between 11.40pm (when the ship hit the iceberg) and 2.20am on April 15 (when the ship sank).

Go on, admit it. You secretly would love to see some disaster happen on that cruise.

There's an up side? (And will teddy get a deportation order too?)

Gulfnews: Saudi Arabia to regulate marriages of young girls

Saudi Arabia plans to regulate the marriages of young girls, its justice minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday, after a court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old to a man 50 years her senior....

A court in the Saudi town of Onaiza upheld for the second time last week the marriage of the Saudi girl to a man who is about 50 years her senior, on condition he does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty...

The minister's comments suggested the practice of marrying off young girls would not be abolished. The regulations will seek to "preserve the rights, fending off blights to end the negative aspects of underage girls' marriage", he said.

In another Gulf News story of interest, being a child in the region can be pretty tough:

An 18-month-old baby has been declared an illegal resident by the Sharjah Naturalisation and Residency Department (SNRD) and has been given one week to leave the country after which she will get a one-year ban.

Nayana Sanjay Kumar was born in October 2007 at Al Qasimi hospital in Sharjah, but her parents, both Indians from Kerala, could not sponsor their new-born baby as their salary was not enough at the time.

The mother works legally as a nurse in a government hospital. Her labour is evidently welcome, just not a baby with rather distinctive eyebrows.

A worthy Bolt

Truth is beyond the Age’s imagination | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Top marks to Andrew Bolt for his illustrated rebuttal of a profoundly ignorant Age editorial.

Condom talk

Yes, I'm late to the party in commenting on the Pope and Pell and their comments on condoms in Africa.

I'm finally prompted to do so by an article yesterday in The Age by a couple of Australian AIDS researchers who cited various studies that they say do not support the Pope's view.

Yet, they spend a lot of time in explaining the success of condoms in non-African countries, particularly those where the widespread use of prostitutes has been at the core of the problem. This is not exactly the same situation as in much of Africa. (You can read the Green article I cite below in support of that.) And besides which, if you could actually pin down Pell on the moral effect of a man visiting a prostitute using a condom, would he say that it compounds the sin, or would he allow that using one reduces the potential bad consequences and, if not a good thing, is at least morally neutral? (I admit he would probably be reluctant to answer, given that he doesn't want in any way to encourage people towards sexual immorality in the first place.)

There's the same missing-the-point in much of David Marr's spray in last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald. He talks of the success of condoms in reducing HIV in Australia - where it was always largely a problem in the gay community. Funny, but I have never noticed the Catholic bishops spending a lot of time teaching that gay men should not use condoms. Even for the heterosexual, I'm always a bit puzzled as to why people think that Catholics who are willing to sin sexually are still going to consider themselves bound by one related issue of Catholic teaching while in the act.

Anyway, the main point of this post is to point people who have not already read him to a Harvard AIDS researcher Edward Green. He wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post entitled "The Pope may be right", but his views appear to have attracted no attention in the Australian media. Here's a key paragraph:

In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa."

And why does he think it hasn't worked well in Africa as it has in other countries:

One reason is "risk compensation." That is, when people think they're made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex.

So, the Pope and Pell have at least one high profile HIV researcher pretty much on their side. People should at least know that.

When I pointed this out at Harry Clarke's blog, he responded by suggesting that Green was just pushing his Catholic faith. I don't know if he is a practising Catholic or not, but he describes himself as a liberal, and certainly he is not saying condoms should be banned:

Don't misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship. This was a key point in a 2004 "consensus statement" published and endorsed by some 150 global AIDS experts, including representatives the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. These experts also affirmed that for sexually active adults, the first priority should be to promote mutual fidelity. Moreover, liberals and conservatives agree that condoms cannot address challenges that remain critical in Africa such as cross-generational sex, gender inequality and an end to domestic violence, rape and sexual coercion.

Here's an interview Green gave to the BBC recently. There you can read this snippet which more directly supports the Pell line on risk compensation in Africa:

There was one where--Norman Hurst of the University of California was one of the authors, it was published in the journal Aids--where they followed two groups of young people in Uganda, and the group that had the intensive condom promotion--and they were provided condoms after three years--they actually were found to have a greater number of sex partners. So that cancels out the risk reduction that the technology of condoms ought to provide. That's the phenomenon known as risk compensation.

Interestingly, in The Age article I initially referred to, they cited the decrease in use of prostitutes in Thailand (where condom use in brothels is very high) as evidence against the risk compensation theory. That may be true in Thailand, but it raises another issue: how much can you say that it is the widespread use of condoms that is the reason for the reduction in HIV spread there, as compared to the pretty dramatic drop in the use of prostitutes in the first place? Seems to me they just want to concentrate on the condom effect, without giving credit to decreased promiscuity.

Here is a long article of Green's that appeared last year in the religious journal First Things. Well worth reading. He disputes the re-interpretation of the Ugandan experience that The Age article notes.

It seems pretty clear that the matter of appropriate responses to HIV in Africa is the subject of some controversy within academia. It's even clear that there is at least some evidence supporting the idea of risk compensation in Africa. The Pope and Pell are not completely out on a limb here when they talk about the African experience, not that you would know that from most of the media coverage.

UPDATE: I just found this commentary at Eureka Street, arguing again that the context of the African experience of AIDS is important:

In contrast to the Western world, religious congregations and parishes were extensively involved from the beginning in caring for infected and rejected women and children. The local Catholic sisters, priests and many bishops generally recognised the dilemma and some have spoken against an absolute interdiction of condoms.

But they also recognise that the instrumental and value free programs imported from the West were less effective in Africa. The spread of AIDS had cultural roots that also needed to be addressed. A view of marriage in which the woman was more than an object, the eradication of magical views of the causes and protections against AIDS, and a culture of mutual respect and of faithfulness within marriage, were required if AIDS was to be checked. These touched the consideration of human sexuality enshrined in church teaching.

The whole article is worth reading.

UPDATE 2: another interesting take on all of this is at The Alligator.

"Just plain nuts"*

Mind Hacks: The chaos of R.D. Laing

Maybe I take a little too much pleasure from stories of the chaotic private lives of the famous; but this is a very good example of a physician who failed to heal himself.

He's been dead for some time now, but RD Laing was the 1960's era psychiatrist/author who promoted the idea that a mental illness was largely was a reaction to family dynamics. As Wikipedia says, Laing's views:

"...ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder....

Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of "madness" (his term). He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a "lose-lose situation" and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned."

Unfortunately, encouraging a belief in a full blown schizophrenic that their madness really has been caused by their family, or society at large, is rarely a helpful approach. So he has rather fallen out of favour now, at least for serious cases of madness, but you can see how appealing he would be to 1960's counterculture.

Anyhow, it turns out that his own family life was pretty much a shambles. The above link has a short outline of the story, but the full details are were in the lengthier Sunday Times article last weekend. Here's the summary:

He abandoned his first five children and left them in penury. He went on to father five more children with three different women, had innumerable affairs, was subject to violent drunken rages and became obsessed with his own fame. Yet he treated patients with extraordinary compassion and empathy, qualities he denied his own family.

Of course, he could blame his own family:

...his mother was over-protective, cold, and viewed overt displays of affection, particularly with her husband, as distasteful. Ronnie would later claim his mother made effigies of him into which she stuck pins, but none of his children believed it. It was, however, certainly true that he was not allowed to bathe on his own until he was 15.

Wikipedia puts it this way:

His parents led a life of extreme denial, exhibiting bizarre behaviour. His father David, an electrical engineer, seems often to have come to blows with his own brother, and himself had a breakdown when Laing was a teenager. His mother Amelia was described as "still more psychologically peculiar". According to one friend and neighbour, "everyone in the street knew she was mad".^[5]

Following his divorce, he was involved in this very 60's experiment, amusing described in the Times article:

The idea was that patients and doctors would live together, thus breaking down the barriers between them.

A “community house” was established at Kingsley Hall, a former youth hostel in east London. Sally Vincent was unimpressed. “It seemed to me that the psychiatrists outnumbered the patients, who were all female and uniformly good-looking. Ronnie would be pompousing about dressed in white robes looking like Jesus and I’d be asking him, ‘Why has that bloke got his hands all over that girl?’ The whole thing stank.”

The Times article gives examples of a lot worse behaviour as he aged.

The interesting point is, of course, that even if he could see the source of his inner demons in his unusual upbringing, why could he not use such knowledge to become a nicer person?

* famous Gary Larson cartoon may be viewed here.

Dubai fights back

Gulfnews: Western expats full of praise for Dubai

I'm not sure how close Gulf News is to whatever passes for government in Dubai, but this article sure has the feel of a PR exercise:

Many who spoke to Gulf News said they regard Dubai as one of the most comfortable and tolerant cities in the world and maintained the western media that "unleash mindless criticism on Dubai" is failing to see the real story.

Corrado Chiarentin, 44, who runs a business consultancy in Dubai, said it is "the most tolerant city" he has ever been to.

All depends how you define tolerant, I suppose, as well as how many cities he has been to.

Deserves an award

For the most pretentious photographs you're likely to see for a new range of designer toilets and basins, go here.

(I think it is meant to convey how toilets will look in heaven.)

Capybara revisited

I had a post about this in 2006, but how many of you have been reading since then?

This time it is the BBC with an article about the poor capybara - the red meat you eat in Venezuela when you are not allowed to eat red meat. (We're talking Lent, and perhaps the most opportunistic categorisation of meat ever.)

Not helpful, China

The Tablet - Arrest of bishops loyal to Rome mars Vatican’s China meeting

Old timers of Area 51

The Road to Area 51 - Los Angeles Times

Some former Area 51 test pilots get to talk about their secret OXCART work. All pretty interesting.

More on the project at Wikipedia.

Hard to enforce

As reported in The Australian:

THE Family Court is allowing mothers to leave the country with their children, provided they agree to sign up for the internet-based video telephone service Skype.

A compulsory subscription to Skype, which allows parents to see their children on the computer screen while talking to them, has been a feature of 10 Family Court cases this year.

Um, how likely is it that this is enforceable from the other side of the world?

Still, I suppose that if the court is convinced a parent should be allowed to relocate to another country (especially if they only moved here because of marriage), I guess it is better for them to at least try to promote video chats than not.

Not a good sign

Escaping the Bhagwan | theage.com.au

Here's one aspect of the Orange People cult of which I was not previously aware:

About 87 per cent of residents had a sexually transmitted disease and women who became pregnant were told by the Bhagwan to abort and sterilise, Stork says. She and her teenage daughter were both sterilised.

"Women would write (to the Bhagwan) saying 'I'm pregnant. what should I do?' He would always say 'abort and sterilise'," she says.

"He used to speak so lovingly about children, yet behind the scenes everybody's getting sterilised. There were no children born in the ashram."

Worth reading at Slate

Slate Magazine

Slate is always worth checking, but just in the last few days, there seem to be a remarkable number of stories of particular interest:

* read about what Americans now think of Australian wines (and how aiming for the cheap and cheerful end of the wine spectrum is not always good marketing in the long run)

* Here's a list of professional groups which have the embarrassment of having a subset that have become 9/11 troofers. (As I have suggested before, global warming skeptics who like to cite petitions of generic scientists in their favour should keep this in mind. There is always a subset of any group who will belief fanciful ideas.)

* Meghan O'Rourke's series on the death of her mother continues to be compelling, moving reading.

* For Easter, there's a quick revision on the role of crucifiction, and how peculiar it was to the Romans that a religion should spring up around such an event.

* You can learn that you are not alone if you think Twitter is a ridiculous fad that will pass soon enough. (It reminds me of all the hype over Second Life.) I like this part:

Much of what we do online has obvious analogues in the past: E-mail and IM replace letters and face-to-face chatting. Blogging is personal pamphleteering. Skype is the new landline. ....

Twitter is different. It's not a faster or easier way of doing something you did in the past, unless you were one of those people who wrote short "quips" on bathroom stalls. It's a totally alien form of communication.

* And you can read a lengthy and (to my mind) pretty convincing argument as to why Israel will bomb Iran in the relatively near future. (There are many counter-intuitive propositions involved, but it's a well thought out essay.)

Slate really is the best quality web magazine of its kind, I reckon.

More and more anti-Dubai

The dark side of Dubai - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

A very long article here that puts the boot into Dubai in a very satisfying manner.

32 million brides for 32 million brothers?

Selective sex abortion causes 32 million excess males in China

Some amazing figures in this summary of a BMJ on the massive gender imbalance in China:

...in 2005 alone, China had more than 1.1 million excess male births.

Among Chinese aged below 20, the greatest gender imbalances were among one-to-four-year-olds, where there were 124 male to 100 female births, with 126 to 100 in rural areas, they found.

The gap was especially big in provinces where the one-child policy was strictly enforced and also in rural areas...

Only two provinces -- Tibet and Xinjiang, the most permissive in terms of the one-child policy -- had normal sex ratios.

"Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males," the paper said. "

For Good Friday

A symbol of the noblest of traditions | theage.com.au

Not a bad attempt here at a response to the modern distaste for the idea of sacrificial atonement.

Broadband skepticism, Part 2

As Michael Stutchbury notes about the proposed $43 billion fibre optic network, the government likes to say:

This is suddenly an "historic nation-building investment" that will "help transform the Australian economy".

And then they talk about how left behind Australia is compared to Japan and Korea, which already have the super high speed fibre to the home.

When is some journalist interviewing a politician going to be bright enough to respond to that line with: "Well, if it's so important to economic success, why is it that Japan has been in an economic slump for 16 years, and it hasn't stopped South Korea from suffering in the current economic meltdown? Apart from its entertainment value, how has high speed internet to every home been an economic boon for those countries?"

It seems the obvious question that never gets asked.

A very funny Colbert

I have no idea why politicians agree to do these bits with Colbert, but last night's "Better Know a District" was an extremely funny one:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a District - New York's 25th - Dan Maffei
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

False memories still popping up

Chris French: False memories of sexual abuse | Science | guardian.co.uk

These are still an issue, it seems. Interesting stuff.

Broadband skepticism

The blog with the most skeptical reaction to the Rudd government's plan to spend $20 to $40 billion on a new broadband fibre network is probably Catallaxy. I'm with many of its readers, like John Z:

The only use I can see on the retail end is pornography, piracy and maybe movie rentals.

Of course, nearly everyone at Larvatus P loves the idea, because it's the natural inclination of the Left to love big spending governments to build and own things which are not strictly necessary.

But there is another motive of many in supporting the idea: to get around the Telstra network bottleneck. I have to admit there appears to be some merit in that, but not at any price.

There is some commentary today on the doubtful extent to which private industry will be inclined to invest in it.

But really, from the Left end of politics (and my incredibly small corner of the Right), I haven't seen anyone yet raise the question of what better use could be made of $30 billion in clean energy development in Australia.

Nothing like dealing with the really serious issues first, hey Kevin?

UPDATE: I just heard on ABC radio that Green MPs will support it because they expect it will help reduce greenhouse gases.

Oh yeah, sure. Half the population will work from home, will they? That'll help productivity.

The Greens do not understand human nature as well as Mitchell and Webb. (The audio on the video at the link may not be entirely suitable for work.)

Not alone

Yet another horror film worthy of the flick - Film - Entertainment

Further to my post about Richard Curtis films, it's good to see someone else with strong opinions about him, and British cinema generally:

We have a knack in Britain of making movies which are not only very bad but bad in an odious way, self-indulgent and self-regarding, knowing and cute, all false sentiment and mirthless humour. Bridget Jones's Diary sets the tone...

Even by those standards, Curtis is grim. Anyone who sees a film which dares call itself Love Actually has been warned. Martin Amis described one of the bleakest evenings of his life as watching Four Weddings, desperate to leave but unable to. He had gone to the cinema with Salman Rushdie, who had to stick to the timetable he gave his police guards. And so they were forced to endure every last minute.

Parky speaks his mind

Sir Michael Parkinson: 'Jade Goody was a wretched role model' - Times Online

Of course, like everyone outside of England, I only knew of the Jade Goody story from news reports, and I never saw her on TV at all. However, the coverage given to her illness and death (see the photo in the article - the funeral procession looks like it was for minor royalty) made me suspect it was all ridiculous talentless celebrity worship.

Now Michael Parkinson has confirmed this:

“When we clear the media smoke screen from around her death, what we’re left with is a woman who came to represent all that’s paltry and wretched about Britain today.

“She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and became a media chattel to be exploited till the day she died.”

An unusual recommendation

Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's ownership of government - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Rare is the day that this blog suggests reading a post by the always hyperventilating Glenn Greenwald, but this lengthy one about how Obama's bailout is guided by the same people who got the world into the mess is worth reading.

(It also makes it clear that the need for regulation of the debt swaps that seem to be at the heart of the crisis was first apparent, and dismissed, in the 1990's under the Clinton administration.)

Modern faith

Madeleine Bunting: Real debates about faith are drowned by the New Atheists' foghorn voices

Madeleine Bunting starts her article with this good point:

What other system of belief has collapsed at such spectacular speed as British Christianity?

and goes on to discuss the annoying New Atheists in a way with which I can more or less agree, even if she quotes Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong with approval.

Her article also helpfully mentions a special edition of New Statesman called "God 2009". (I guess that would be the God that communicates via the internet now, instead of burning bushes.) It looks as if most of it is on the 'net. Plenty of Easter reading for all of you pagans out there.

Noted from the PETA website

Green iguanas are some of the most frequently abandoned companion animals, likely because people find out too late what is required to care for them.

Reptiles count as "companion animals"?

The list they then give of potential iguana raising issues is dryly amusing:

A properly cared-for iguana can live for more than 20 years and grow to be more than 6 feet long. The enclosure for a full-grown iguana should be at least 18 feet long, humidified, and maintained at a particular temperature with specific timetables for darkness and ultraviolet light. Common problems for captive iguanas are metabolic bone disease from calcium deficiency, mouth rot, respiratory disease, abscesses, and ulcers. ...

It takes about a year of daily interaction to socialize an iguana, and even then, sexually mature males will be very aggressive six months out of the year if they see their own reflections or if confronted with other iguanas.

They convinced me, at least.

In other PETA pages, 82 year old Cloris Leachman is their pin-up girl:

She chooses to eat vegetarian. Now Cloris is sharing the secret behind her vitality with her fans by posing in a dress made of cabbage for PETA's newest "Let Vegetarianism Grow on You" ad.

And on a seasonal note, if you're Jewish, you can find out how to have a Vegan Passover:

Traditionally, most Jews include an egg on the ritual seder plate—to symbolize spring and life—but many now replace it with a flower. ... In place of the shank bone set on the seder plate to remind us of "the mighty arm of God," many Jews use a beet, as allowed in the Talmud.

A vegetable to remind them of "the mighty arm of God"?

The ice thins

Arctic Literally On Thin Ice, According To New Satellite Data

This link has one diagram you probably won't see at Andrew Bolt's. It illustrates the following:

Until recent years, measurements have shown most Arctic ice has survived at least one summer and often several, said Meier. But the balance has now flipped, and seasonal ice -- which melts and re-freezes every year -- now comprises about 70 percent of Arctic sea ice in winter, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, he said. Thicker ice that has survived two or more years now comprises just 10 percent of ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent in years past.

Your cat is killing the planet

Save the planet: Get rid of your cat

Hey, we love a good anti-cat article as much as the next dog and rat person, and this one is pretty comprehensive. For example (quoting the New York Times):

Coco, like most American cats, ate fish. And a great deal of them — more in a year than the average African human, according to Jason Clay at the World Wildlife Fund. And unlike the chicken or beef Coco also gobbled up, all those fish were wild animals, scooped out of the sea and flown thousands of carbon-belching miles to reach his little blue bowl....

The pet food industry now uses about 10 percent of the global supply of forage fish.

Yes, your cat has an enormous carbon footprint. Unless you can train it to start planting trees, it has to go.

The problem with modern technology..

..is you might realise old technology has missed its prayer target:

Gulfnews: 200 mosques in Saudi face the wrong direction

Riyadh: Around 200 mosques in Islam's holiest city, Makkah, point the wrong way for prayers, a Saudi Arabian newspaper reported on Sunday.

According to the Arab News paper, the mosques were reportedly not built exactly based on the qibla, the official alignment with the holy Ka'aba shrine at the centre of the holy city's Al Haram mosque.

People looking down from new skyscrapers in Makkah found the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the Ka'aba, and some worshippers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.

Counting people

Population: some boom, some decline - On Line Opinion - 6/4/2009

Online Opinion re-prints an interesting article on the growth of humanity.

(Hey, it was either that or more puzzlement over the mystery of a Prime Minister who is seemingly only unpopular with those who know him. I see little reason to change what I said in 2007: it's either a pact with the devil, or a Jedi mind trick, even if there weren't cheques in the mail to be factored in at the time of that post.)

Sleeping dog

This video has gone viral, by the looks. (It got a mention on CNN). The remarkable sleep running dog:

Bikie Rudd

No word on bikie 'breach' at Lodge - National News - National - General - The Canberra Times

This is a very curious story. (The Age's version has more details.) A couple of bikies, looking like bikies, get access to the Lodge for an hour or so to do "maintenance work" under (apparently) forged accreditation. (Well, I assume that's what "suspect accreditation" means.)

Why on earth would bikies want access to the Lodge? If it' s all a misunderstanding, and they really were doing maintenance but the accreditation was somehow botched by a government official, why haven't the bikies concerned come out and said "see, this is just typical of the discrimination we face"?

Maybe Kevin's Harley needed work. That's his secret pleasure: cruising the streets of Canberra on a hog at 2 am, wearing a bandana, to wind down after a long day of abusing staff. [Update: he probably drives up to the 24 hour MacDonalds and orders a chicken salad. There's trouble if they are sold out.]

Or, less implausibly, they were restocking the amphetamine supplies that keep everyone awake while the PM works them through the night. Or setting up some indoor hydroponic marijuana that a rebellious Minister insisted Kevin start smoking as a way of taking the edge off his personality (probably under threat of leaking some video of a spleen-vent to the media.)

[Hey, I think I'm pretty good at fevered conspiracy theories about Kevin. Someone has to do it.]

Alien report

As previously indicated, the kids and I saw Monsters Vs Aliens in 3-D over the weekend. It's the first full length animated 3-D film I've seen, and it's an interesting experience. As you are aware that everything on the screen is a construct, it continually gives the impression of watching a moving diorama; like watching the action play out on some model train enthusiast's vast set up. It's a pleasing sensation.

The movie itself is very witty both visually and in the writing, and is certainly a crowd pleaser.

One other odd thing is that, for me, Stephen Colbert is one of those actors who has such a distinctive voice that it's actually quite jarring at first to hear the sound coming out of an animated face. Still, the segments his character (President of the United States) were in were pretty funny.

As for 3-D and the kids eyes: one loved it, but the other complained after half an hour and had to take a break from the glasses. It's not for every kid.

Tough goose

Making Ends Meet in the Great Depression - NYTimes.com

The New York Times is providing recession survival hints by interviewing a few old folk about how they got through the Great Depression.

The article is of some interest, but are geese all as tough as this?:

We used to make featherbeds out of chicken feathers and geese, but we’d pick the goose without killing him: all you do is pick him up, yank the feathers off when he was still alive. He don’t mind it. It grows back in two or three months.

End result: an upsurge in candy tycoons

Next: career counselling for toddlers | The Australian

Successful cheap Penguins

The "Popular Penguin" titles (with orange and white covers and all priced $10) were mentioned by me here (and on someone else's blog, I think) a while ago, and it's good to see that they have been a commercial success. So successful that another 50 titles will be released in July. Yay.

The 3-D question

3-D movies like Monsters vs. Aliens hurt your eyes. They always have, and they always will. - Slate Magazine

Oh. I was planning on taking the kids to see Monsters vs Aliens this weekend in 3-D version. Now, I'm not so sure after reading the above article.

One interesting thing I didn't know:

Five percent to 8 percent of the population is stereoblind and can't convert binocular disparity into depth information. That means they can't appreciate any of the 3-D effects in a RealD or Imax movie. An additional 20 to 30 percent of the population suffers from a lesser form of the deficit, which could diminish the experience of 3-D effects or make them especially uncomfortable to watch.

How do you know if your kids are within the 20 to 30 %?

And here's something presumably rare, but surprising none the less:

There's already been one published case study, from the late-1980s, of a 5-year-old child in Japan who became permanently cross-eyed after viewing an anaglyph 3-D movie at a theater.

Meatgate

Kevin Rudd losing his temper in spectacular enough fashion to make a RAAF attendant cry is in desperate need of a good "- gate" name. As he was apparently upset at only a meat dish being available, meatgate will do for now.

Journalists have often commented that Rudd, in private, swears a lot, flies into rage with those who he keeps working all night when he perceives they have made a mistake, and is an absolute control freak. Yet it's only the meek, mild Milky Bar Kid image that the public is allowed to see. (Occasional sh*t storm excepted, and even then it was a pre-recorded apparent slip which he or his minders let go through because they thought it wouldn't hurt his image.)

Opinion Dominion predicts: one day, someone (probably from his own side of the political fence) is going to turn up with a recording or video that will show the PM in private acting in a spectacularly unflattering way.

Lack of talent finally recognized

The success of Richard Curtis' output as a writer/director has always puzzled me:

* Four Weddings and a Funeral: why so well received when the romance between the leads happens in such a perfunctory manner? You get a more charming and realistic romance in a fantasy like Groundhog Day.
* Notting Hill: bland romance dominated by Julia's cavernous mouth and Hugh's floppy hair.
* Bridget Jones Diary: ho hum girl's comedy, notable only for an American able to do a British accent. Charmless endorsement of the right of young women to make stupid decisions about who to sleep with.
* Love Actually: haven't seen all of it, but sections seen seem twee and improbable in the extreme. Hugh Grant as PM? Oh please.
* Vicar of Dibley: full of mugging overacting, and simply not funny. Listening to its laugh track is like watching those 1970's black american sitcoms where the audience goes wild while I sit at home wondering what is wrong with them.

As far as I can see, he's never been involved in anything good since Blackadder, and then only as co-writer.

Come to think of it, the decline of Curtis's talent is strangely reflective of the moral and cultural decline of Britain over the same period.

In any case, at last it seems he's come up with a certified failure. Early reviews for The Boat that Rocked are (mostly) very bad. From The Times (I should say Spoiler Warning, I suppose):

The all-male rebels on the boat, plus an honourable lesbian, expend most of their energy on the weekly liferaft of horny Carry On nurses and securing a steady supply of drugs. When it becomes embarrassingly obvious that there is basically nothing worth saving on the ship apart from the fabulous soundtrack, Curtis has the ingenious idea of blowing a hole in the hull and turning his film into a disaster movie. Frankly, it’s too absurd for words.

From Scotland on Sunday:

a truly Titanic film, in the sense that it is a disappointingly wretched thing that takes ages to sink from sight.

From someone commenting at Time Out:

This is truly appalling stuff. Do not touch with a barge-pole. Excruciating throughout. The main jokes are that there's a lesbian on the ship and someone has the surname Twatt. Hilarious stuff eh? Proof that Ben Elton was the funny one behind Blackadder.

Retirement beckons, Richard.

Netanyahu talks about Iran

Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview for The Atlantic a couple of days ago, and it's well worth reading.

I suspect the Iranians will simply view the "let's just sit down and talk" approach of the Obama administration as buying time to plough ahead full steam with nuclear weapon development. At some point, Israel alone will act, possibly in a strike that is basically suicidal (for the airmen or soldiers involved) but the timing of that is anyone's guess.

China and reciprocity

China and foreign investment | Unfavoured nation | The Economist

An interesting column in The Economist pointing out that, even though Chinese companies meet resistance in their investments in foreign companies, China has been doing exactly the same to foreign companies looking to buy into China. For example:

Anti-investment forces in Australia were emboldened when China blocked Coca-Cola’s $2.4 billion purchase of Huiyuan, a juice producer, using a new anti-monopoly law that increasingly looks like nothing more than an impediment to foreign buyers. Coke’s rejection was unique only in the method used, and the lengths to which the company gone to establish its commitment to China—it gave billions of dollars in investment and support of the Beijing Olympics even when other companies were bailing out.

As for the issues that arise when dealing with Chinese companies, the final paragraph is of note:

Chinalco contends this is a misunderstanding of China’s state-owned enterprises, which operate independently. To some extent this is true—Chinese companies do compete with each other—but it is also false: they follow government policy, have government-appointed management and enjoy privileged access to the vast Chinese market. These issues have been aired before in Asia, most notably in the case of Singaporean companies, but China’s wealth, and scale, and the opacity of its government and laws put them in starker relief.

Home weapons advice

Aircraft could be brought down by DIY 'E-bombs' - 01 April 2009 - New Scientist

I don't think there is anything April Fools Day-ish about this story.

The suggestion is that it would not be too hard for a terrorist to build an "E bomb" device to take down a commercial airliner. I'm a little skeptical of the claim.

However, e-bombs remain this blog's favourite potential weapon. (Particularly suited to attacking nuclear developing nations, in my opinion.)

Because too much debt is never enough

Kevin Rudd plans third stimulus as G20 leaders meet on economic crisis | The Australian

TREASURY is preparing the ground for a massive new burst of fiscal stimulus in next month's budget, declaring that the measures to date have averted a plunge in consumer spending.

A bit like this blog, really

Dezeen - Close encounter by Oscar Lhermitte

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design student Oscar Lhermitte has designed a series of functionless objects that will “fulfil an unpredicted need”.

Feeling better about abortion

Britain's advertising codes are being reviewed, with the possibility that abortion ads may be appearing on TV there. Dana Hovig (a man) of abortion providing charity Marie Stopes, says this would be a good thing:

"The point is not to increase abortions - we want to increase the number of women who are using family planning and taking control of their lives in that way - but there is still a stigma, and if it can go on television then it will help de-stigmatise it."

We wouldn't want anyone feeling as a much as a smidgeon of doubt that might stop them having that abortion, would we?

From the Govenor-General's website

In her civic role as Governor of Queensland, Ms Bryce continued her work with women, families and young people while extending her influence across the State’s broad and diverse spectrum, including the rural, regional, aged, indigenous, migrant, and disability sectors.

As a mother and grandmother, Quentin is a role model and mentor to women at every stage of their lives.

I didn't know that.

Where did her PR writer attend university? North Korea?

Geeky and cute

Tauntaun Sleeping Bag - stay warm without the mess

If you have forgotten what a Tauntaun is, have a lot at the photo in the link.

Thinking like a mouse

Mice And Humans Should Have More In Common In Clinical Trials

An interesting suggestion here about how medical researchers' attitude toward mice is not giving the best results:

... new research shows that the customary practice of standardizing mice by trying to limit environmental variation in laboratories actually increases the chance of getting an incorrect result....

....scientists often use mice that are basically genetically identical and try to limit internal and external environmental factors such as stress, diet and age to eliminate variables affecting the outcome.

Garner said there is no practical way to ensure that all environmental conditions are the same with mice, however, because they respond to cues humans cannot detect. For example, a researcher's odor in one lab might cause more stress for a mouse than another researcher's odor in a second lab with different mice, giving different results. But scientists, unaware of the odor difference, may believe a treatment worked when the mice were actually responding to an environmental cue, giving a false positive.

More details are in the article about why they think mixing up different mice would work better.

Must be something I ate

Heston's Roman Feast

It's been busy at work, but now I'm feeling a bit crook too. It could well be something I ate, but for a truly queasy feeling, no one did dinner parties like the Romans:

The most interesting bit for me was the recreation of the 'Trojan pig'. This is a joking dish described by Petronius in the Satyricon, but known elsewhere in Roman literature. It's a large roast pig stuffed with sausages, so that when the flesh of the pig is slit, what looks like intestines tumble out.

In Petronius, it is a neat joke played on the dinner guests, staged between the host Trimalchio and his cook. The pig is brought in to the banquet, and with it comes the cook -- full of apologies that he has forgotten to gut the animal. Trimalchio feigns anger and orders the cook to strip for a whipping, until the other guests plead for mercy. 'Ok,' says Trimalchio, 'gut it now'. And out come all those sausages . . . and everyone applauds.

Treating a cook like that probably now only occurs in Madonna's household. She would probably also enjoy this:

He [chef Heston Blumenthal, whose TV recreation of a Roman banquest is the subject of this article] had better luck with Petronius' ejaculating cake, which was the centrepiece of his Roman pudding.

A new dessert menu idea for Gordon Ramsay, perhaps?

Detour ahead

Probably won't be posting much for a few days.

Yes, it's a tragedy I know. Tales of despair may be related in comments.

We shall not be moved (til 20 April, then we move)

Rebel priest Peter Kennedy expects congregation to follow him | The Courier-Mail

Won't the Trades and Labor Council take the Gay and Lesbian Choir too?

For your next masked party

Free Masks | News Groper

The instructions on each are the best feature.

Nitschke considered

Column - Nitschke’s troubling trail of death | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

A column well worth reading about Dr Nitschke.

A couple of days ago The Age gave front page publicity to a terminally ill woman who committed suicide with the help of Nitschke's Exit organisation, but gave a lengthy interview to be used to promote changes to euthanasia laws.

As usual, this is an area where it feels too much like tempting fate if one sounds too critical. I watched some of her interview, and she talked about having widespread secondary cancers in her bones, and how this caused much pain.

Yet, at the time of the interview, she clearly was not in any substantial pain, and to all appearances, looked well. (She had no gaunt appearance, for example.)

I do not doubt that bone cancer must be one of the worst ways to die, but to be honest, given the example of Nancy Crick, it would always be good to have independent verification of an illness when it is someone in the Exit publicity machine.

And really, if they do want to make a more compelling case for suicide, can't they at least pick people who look very ill in the videos?

Meanwhile, over in England, a new study suggests that euthanasia as a concept is not so popular amongst their doctors. It is interesting to note that the Dutch medical profession are different in this regard:

The fundamental difference of opinion is important, says Seale, because governments who have passed laws to enable assisted dying have only done so with the support of the medical profession, as happened in the Netherlands.

"The Dutch medical association in the late 1980s and 90s was moving towards the view that euthanasia was an acceptable way of dealing with certain forms of suffering," he said. "Dutch medical opinion was influential with the government."

Going quietly?

Deal struck to end St Mary's priest rebellion | The Courier-Mail

I wonder if there will be some tension within the congregation over this, and whether Kennedy himself will accept it and go peacefully.

An unlikely solution

Condoms to be advertised round-the-clock on TV - Times Online

England has a high teenage pregnancy rate, so how do they solve it? With 24 hour condom advertising on TV, of course.

Um, I wonder just how many British teenagers there are who do not know that they can buy condoms?

The ads will probably run during shows like Shameless and Skins, shows which are full of lower income area teenagers having sex in all its variations.

Something is seriously wrong with that place.

Gone with the ...

Green energy plans in disarray as wind farm giant slashes investment - Times Online

Set your watches

Male circumcision reduces risk of genital herpes and HPV infection, but not syphilis

Once again, I will do a post on the benefits of circumcision, partly for the fun of waiting for the international anti-circumcision forces to post a rebuttal in comments.

Honestly, the argument appears to be over, at least in the African context:

"Medically supervised adult male circumcision is a scientifically proven method for reducing a man's risk of acquiring HIV infection through heterosexual intercourse," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "This new research provides compelling evidence that circumcision can provide some protection against genital herpes and human papillomavirus infections as well."

The Pope has nothing against circumcision as far as I know, so a big push to fund safe and hygienic circumcision in Africa would have to be one of the more effective things the West can do to reduce AIDS.

Of interest

Hernando de Soto Says Toxic Assets Emerged From a Shadow Economy - WSJ.com

de Soto's take on what went wrong with the financial system sounds plausible to me. An extract:

At the beginning of the decade there was about $100 trillion worth of property paper representing tangible goods such as land, buildings, and patents world-wide, and some $170 trillion representing ownership over such semiliquid assets as mortgages, stocks and bonds. Since then, however, aggressive financiers have manufactured what the Bank for International Settlements estimates to be $1 quadrillion worth of new derivatives (mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps) that have flooded the market. These derivatives are the root of the credit crunch. Why? Unlike all other property paper, derivatives are not required by law to be recorded, continually tracked and tied to the assets they represent. Nobody knows precisely how many there are, where they are, and who is finally accountable for them.

It is hard to believe the financial institutions could not see the problem they were creating, or react to it earlier.

Doctors and their conscience

Obama weighs patient rights vs. doctor's conscience | csmonitor.com

The Christian Science Monitor really does good journalism, I think, as this well written article shows.

I wonder: is it possible to have some sort of compromise that involves doctors being entirely free to exercise their conscience in certain areas, but if so they have to it clear to the potential patient that they reserve that right in terms of "treatment" offered.

I'm thinking, signage at the reception counter, or a clear statement of the receptionist to the effect "Dr X does have conscientious objection to certain types of treatment that other doctors may be prepared to offer in the fields of reproductive health, etc. You understand that he does not have an obligation to discuss this with you when presenting options, and if you have any concerns about the potential for this to affect your treatment, you should see another doctor."

If people understand they are seeing a doctor on that basis, I don't see the harm. The doctor still exercises his/her conscience, but the patient understood that he/she would be doing that.

Of course, people would argue that this doesn't work for those who are incapable of understanding the warning, but life isn't perfect. (It may also cause much loss of business, I guess, which would not make it popular with doctors. But if the choice is between that and prosecution or loss of funding because they won't refer a patient elsewhere, would they take it?)

Unlucky and lucky

93-year-old man 1st person to be certified as survivor of both A-bombings

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

Time to delay

When even John Quiggin acknowledges a fundamental flaw in the government's emissions trading scheme, and calls for change, it's definitely time to stop and delay the introduction of a scheme that virtually keeps no one happy.

I still think there is little point in introducing anything until we see more clearly the direction the US is going to take. And I still think a carbon tax is a better idea, even if it does not "guarantee" a set level of reductions.

For nearly any problem, Labor tends to be drawn towards gesture politics (the mere appearance of effective action) over steps that ensure actual results. Introducing the present CPRS in its current form would be a continuation of that dubious tradition.

Agreed

Bryan Appleyard believes in global warming but doesn't think a blight of windmills on every hill in the land is the answer:

There is...absolutely no reason to believe at this point that wind power can do anything more than contribute a small fraction of our energy needs. Nuclear will be the answer once we have found our way through this crazy posturing phase.

Sensible chap, that Bryan.

A question or two

Lateline - 24/03/2009: US Govt plans to purge toxic assets

This segment on Lateline last night showed us one of the newly empty suburbs of America, where there are worthless "sub prime" houses the banks are happy to virtually give away.

One thing I don't understand is: where did the former occupants of these houses go? Was there an adequate rental market to absorb them immediately? You can't imagine the same thing in Australia, where housing demand is keeping rents up and vacancy down.

Another question: is there nothing much in the way of public housing in America? In Australia, I could imagine a push for governments to acquire a dirt cheap empty suburb or two as a way of boosting public housing.

Cold fusion comeback

'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source

Pretty clear evidence is given that a certain type of cold fusion device is producing neutrons. (If fusion is happening, there must be neutrons.)

Whether cold fusion ever proves useful for energy production is, however, another question.

UPDATE: the New Scientist version of the story goes into more detail, and provides an alternative explanation to fusion. (Not sure how credible it is, though.)

The limits of solar

The Solar Fraud - BraveNewClimate.com

Barry Brooks reviewed a skeptical solar power book last week, and thinks it has some value.

Brooks is promoting nuclear power quite strongly now, but whether or not he is making any inroads to the Green movement accepting it is another issue.

Still, if I were rich, having solar power to the house still appeals. Doesn't eveyone just like the idea of not being reliant on utilities?

Please let me see one...and in praise of Sony

How the Kindle will change the world. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

Meanwhile, here in the boondocks known as "Australia", there is no sign as to when epaper devices will arrive. Grrr. (I think I might prefer the Sony reader anyway.)

Speaking of Sony, here's an observation. I have been pounding away at work for the last 7 years or so on the same Sony laptop. (It is only used for wordprocessing and browsing the internet. With an upgrade of RAM, it still works fine.)

I type a fair bit everyday, yet I have recently noticed that there is absolutely no sign of wear or deterioration in the letters on the keyboard at all. This is quite different to the wireless keyboards in the office, as well as a couple of other brand laptops at home. It seems that for most keyboards, after a year or two, the most popular characters start to wear off, until some completely disappear.

How does Sony make their letters so tough? Why can't all keyboard manufacturers do that?