The perpetual teenager

Pew, that was a lucky escape | theage.com.au

Catherine Deveny writes about Catholicism, her childhood religion, with all the subtly and wit of a 15 year old know-it-all flaunting a new-found sexuality and atheism to annoy her parents. (That is, with none at all.) Trouble is, she's 40.

I also wonder about this section:

The priest, obviously drawn by the unusual sight of new people, approached us to welcome us to his flock. I shot out my hand. "Hi, I'm Catherine."

All the blood drained from his face. "You're that writer?" "Yes," I replied. I happily introduced my sons, who, in an uncharacteristic display of manners, shook the priest's hand and said, "Nice to meet you." The priest wandered off in a daze. Or was it a trance? Maybe it was religious melancholy.

Why would the priest even recognise her? Unless she gave warning of her attendance (and why would she bother doing that?) I would be quite surprised that she would otherwise be known to him.

She's seems profoundly proud of her kids being brought up as free thinking libertines:

After surveying the ''good news'' of carnage and damnation on the wall, the 11-year-old asked what a virgin was. I explained. Then he said, "Is there something wrong with sex?"

We know what her answer would be. One gets the impression from previous columns that she intends to be terribly non-judgemental and open-minded to the point of quasi-encouragement to experiment, probably as a continuation of her resentment of her parents trying to set some boundaries for her. (Just a guess, there, but she does write in her column today how a comment made in the car by her father, about another family, made her want "to jump over the front seat and ram my father's head into the windscreen".)

If there is any justice, at least one of her kids will have a conservative rebellion and end up very religious. It will, hopefully, annoy Deveny no end.

The real Big Day Out

Time for a report on the trip to the Brisbane Exhibition last Sunday.

If it was up to me, I would arrive at 9am and leave at 9.30pm, but my wife is not from these parts, and considers that to be just a ridiculously long day. (You have to be born and raised in Brisbane to have the inordinate fondness for the place that quite a few of us here share.) I think she actually threatened last year to just leave me to take the kids this time, but somewhere in the intervening 12 months she changed her mind, and ended up a relatively happy participant. She missed my daughter - now 6 - telling me in the afternoon, without prompting, that it was "the best day ever". I passed the message on to my wife with a small degree of smug satisfaction.

[Later in the day, I observed to my wife that it is pleasing to see a lot of Asian and other immigrants at the show. She claimed it was because Brisbane was short of entertainment anyway, and people just go to whatever is on. As you can see, the brainwashing has some way to go yet.]

Before I leave the topic of the marital dispute over the exact degree of enjoyment an adult can appropriately extract from the Ekka, I should also mention that I took my aged mother along this year too. (She resisted getting in the car at first, but after a bit of shoving she accepted her fate.)

We arrived at about 11am, and left after the fireworks at 8.45.

So this year's highlights:

* new lambs in the sheep birthing place were cute (but we didn't actually see one being born)

* I get happiness from the fact that my kids chose relatively cheap buys in the show bags, yet were very satisfied. The boy takes the show as an opportunity to weaponise himself for the following 12 months, and this year he was happy with one $10 machine gun that, I must admit, I would have liked as a boy too. The girl went for a cutesy pet bag with lots of stationary in it.

* the "jet truck" was new and kind of slow and pointless, except it did make a very big flame that is pretty spectacular.

* we all decided that the latest rides look downright dangerous, and potentially not just to the riders. The current new types seem to involve variations on a theme of long arms which spin people sitting at the end around in a vertical circle. Why anyone thinks this is fun is beyond me; I can barely stand the roller coaster type rides at Disneyland, where one feels Uncle Walt surely wouldn't scare you to death. (Space Mountain is probably the strongest ride I have ever been on.) Not being a fan of the falling sensation, this looks particularly horrendous to me:




It's also clear that if there is a catastrophic failure, then, depending on the exact point of the circle it happens, the passengers could end up some distance away and take out many passers-by. I certainly did not like to stand in the plane of the ride, just in case.

Anyhoo, a pleasant day was had by all, even though my mother elected to stay the night but by the end decided she really was too old to spend that much time there. I pointed out that she was giving up to easily: there is always the wheelchair option when she's 90. (She's only got 5 years to reach that milestone.)

Finally, I note that big re-development of the site is finally going to get underway, which means that residential units and some all year round commercial use will be allowed on parts of the land. (As I recall, it is all owned by the Royal National Association, and the Council and State government have been lusting after the re-development potential of the place for decades.) This report gives an idea of some of the changes. I am not sure how it affect the Ekka itself; it's hard to imagine some of the old buildings gone. But the upside is: maybe I can retire there, as one of the blessed 10,000 residents. Not quite like living in Disneyland, but still...

Talking about solar

I see someone in the Economist talks about his options for domestic solar power in the US, and how it has become significantly more affordable in recent years.

I know that everyone says that solar power does not make economic sense at the moment, but there is one thing I think people don't factor in: the strong appeal of semi-independence from the grid.

On the weekend, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Brisbane Ekka (a longer post will follow), and I did notice a lot of people asking at this company's display about its domestic solar cells. I think the price was something like $2,995 for a 1.5 KW system. (After rebates I presume?)

I've never looked into it much, but from what I can gather, anything less than 2 KW is hardly worth the effort. Still, I think people just like the idea of not being so reliant on the grid, even if the cost is no where near going to be recovered in electricity savings.

If (as seems certain) an ETS is going to send up electricity costs pretty quickly, the appeal of solar is surely going to increase, although again it may not actually make economic sense. If an ETS encourages more people to install solar, and thereby reduce the drain on coal fired plants, that appears to be a good thing. The issue, I suppose, is at what cost to the government, as I presume that solar will still only succeed (in the sense that many people will buy it) with heavy government rebates.

If the money the government spends on supporting solar could be spent in other ways that are more effective at reducing CO2 from coal fired plants, then it's not such a good idea.

All I am saying is that experts should not overlook the inherent appeal of free electricity from the roof.

Appleyard takes on the Godless (again)

Bryan Appleyard reviewed a book "The Evolution of God" in The Times on the weekend, and now has followed up with an entertaining and interesting post on his blog.

Rich on US woes

Op-Ed Columnist - Is Obama Punking Us? - NYTimes.com

Frank Rich has an interesting column on Obama and the increasing perception that the US system of government is more-or-less corrupted wholesale by lobbyists. He ends with this:

The best political news for the president remains the Republicans. It’s a measure of how out of touch G.O.P. leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are that they keep trying to scare voters by calling Obama a socialist. They have it backward. The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy. If anything, the most unexpected — and challenging — event that could rock the White House this August would be if the opposition actually woke up.

This'll be interesting

Let battle commence! Climate change denialist ready for the fight | George Monbiot

Monbiot tells us that Ian Plimer has accepted his challenge to a debate, first in writing, and then in person.

George has posted at the link above his list of questions to Plimer.

The response shall be very, very interesting.

Hardly worth the effort

Does wind power reduce carbon emissions? - BraveNewClimate.com

Barry Brook quotes at length from some work indicating that wind power in Australia in practice will save little in carbon.

Sunday scandal

Sex scandal behind Brideshead Revisited - Times Online

Quite a detailed re-telling here of the English aristocratic sex scandal which gave the inspiration for Brideshead Revisited.

This part shows a somewhat relaxed attitude to what was permissible in staff interviews those days:

Boom — as Beauchamp was known, ostensibly because of his foghorn voice — was said to have “exquisite taste in footmen”. His interviewing style was unique. He would pass his hands over their buttocks, making a similar hissing noise to the one made by stable lads when rubbing their horses down. If the young man was handsome and pleasant, the earl would remark: “He’ll do well. Very nice indeed!”

The true life story was much more scandalous than what goes on in Brideshead, though.

That's useful

Israel to blame for Arafat death: Fatah | The Australian

THE ruling faction of the Palestinian Authority has formally blamed Israel for the "assassination" of Yasser Arafat, one of the founders of the Fatah party.

At the party's conference in Bethlehem yesterday, delegates unanimously passed a resolution blaming Israel for Arafat's death and setting up a committee to investigate the death.

Well, that'll help things move forward. Maybe they are just annoyed that a significant part of the world believe the rumours that it was AIDS.

But the Saudi King makes some blunt comments that (except the "criminal enemy" quip) are useful:

Saudi King Abdullah said: "Even if the whole world agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with all the needed support and backing, it will not be established as long as the Palestinian house is divided."

And referring to Israel as "the criminal enemy", King Abdullah wrote: "I'll be honest, brothers. The criminal enemy could not over long years of continued aggression have inflicted as much damage to the Palestinian cause as did the Palestinians themselves in a matter of a few months."

Over at Gulf News, there was an opinion column earlier this week (I can no longer see it) which urged Palestinians to make alternative plans for what happens if a two state solution is never achieved. The writer did not give any clue as to what the alternative for the Palestinians might be.

Sad Hollywood news

John Hughes, director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and writer of Home Alone, dies - Times Online

I mentioned him here last year, and he was only 59. I can't think of anyone from Hollywood who has replaced him as a source of witty entertainment that (nearly always) could be enjoyed by adults, teenagers and younger children together. (It's better to put it that way than to use what has become a semi-derogatory phrase: "family entertainment".)

It's a miracle!

Opinion: Do you believe in miracles? - opinion - New Scientist

I'm still pretty busy, but in the meantime, readers of a philosophical bent can go read the above article about the issue of miracles.

I've only read it quickly, and while it's not as clear as it could be, it seems to make some decent points.

Comet or volcano?

Was there a comet impact in AD 536? Maybe.

Doodling discussion

Playing with a graphics tablet is a lot of fun, but I have some trouble finding the best software to use when wanting to do my somewhat pathetic and rushed attempts at cartoons.

My natural inclination is to go for freeware, but I can't say I have found anything I like much. I've tried Dogwaffle, and it is OK, but sometimes hard to find things easily. (One point I want to make is that, when you are using a stylus to move around the screen, the "left click" or "right click" functions are no where near as natural feeling as when you use a mouse. I therefore find software that requires those to bring down menu options quite annoying. (Although you can just tap the screen sometimes in lieu of a left click.)

I have also tried the free version of Art Rage, but for simple pen or pencil functions, I don't care for it.

The best software I have found is actually Art Dabbler, which came bundled with an old tablet before my current one. I find its interface very natural and easy to use. (You open a "drawer" to find your different tools.)

I also find it makes reproduces very smooth lines - something which Dogwaffle, Painter and and free programs do not always achieve.

Sadly, Art Dabbler was sold to Corel and is no longer available. I do have Corel's Painter Essentials (came with current tablet), but there is a bit of a learning curve involved, and it is just not as easy as I would like. (All I want to do is draw nice lines with a "pen" or "pencil" and be able to colour it easily.)

I am sure this is all very boring for people who have never used a tablet to draw, but if anyone has used freeware with their tablet which they are happy with, please let me know.

Lots of steam

World's Largest Solar Cooking System Installed in India

If poorer countries are going to reduce their CO2, while still cooking food, then systems like this will presumably have a role to play:

India already had the previous world's largest solar-powered cooking system, serving 15,000 pilgrims daily at the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh. But now that one has been been one-upped, Taragana reports. The new system has been installed at the shrine of 19th century saint Sai Baba in Shridi and can feed up to 20,000 people per day:

The system generates some 3,500 kg of steam daily, which replaces on a yearly basis 100,000 kg of cooking gas.

3,500 kg of steam? That's how you measure steam?

Anyhow, it would be interesting to know whether the cost is worthwhile in terms of gas savings.

Turnbull and the amazing, all-knowing Rundle

Turnbull's solid case may fail to rescue credibility

Michelle Grattan in The Age is pretty forgiving in her assessment of Turnbull and the "utegate" affair. As she says:

...most honest journalists would have to admit that, presented with Grech and his document, they would have thought they had a pretty watertight story. Especially given that the evidence points to a long relationship with the Opposition.

The worst commentary on this is from Guy Rundle in Crikey (which is the subject of a LP post here), yet because it is a silly exercise in psychoanalysing all the major players and condemns Turnbull and everyone around him, the people at Larvatus Prodeo think it's great.

I don't begrudge that the leftie readers of LP think that Turnbull has shot himself in the foot in a major way. But what really annoys is that they (and in particular, Mark Bahnisch, who reproduced the article) do not call out the obvious flaws in the Rundle article as a piece of analysis. I mean, really, it starts:

It should have been obvious to anyone who came into contact with him that Godwin Grech was not a man whose robustness could be assumed. Apparently frail and ill from childhood, a solitary type who joined the CPS directly from university, he clearly found in public service a framework for his existence, and a meaning for a life he reasonably assumed would be foreshortened.

He can also tell how meetings he never saw must have gone:

Most people would have spotted instantly that someone like Grech was out of his element, in crisis, that there was a point at which to stop.

And Turnbull's decision to run with the issue:

...contributed to the ruination of a man whose one hope for a meaningful and rounded life, for a life that made sense, was to have been, and been remembered as, a dutiful and effective public servant. Turnbull was the stronger man. It was his fault.

As for Turnbull and Abbott:

Like many of a certain type of Roman Catholic, and Turnbull is the same, Abbott is a man without a soul who outsources its provisioning to the most dependable outfit around — and one that, unlike protestantism or Islam, doesn’t demand that you make much of an effort to change your nature.

You can bet your bottom dollar that Bahnisch, if reading some equivalent armchair psychoanalysis of Labor figures would be calling it as overheated rubbish and pathetic as an exercise of alleged serious political analysis.

The point is, Mark likes to get annoyed about the quality of political journalistic analysis, but only when it is against his side of politics.

Small black holes delayed

Large Hadron Collider Struggles, Adding to the Mysteries of Life - NYTimes.com

The LHC is currently planned to be turned again in November, but its major, major teething problems mean it won't be working at its intended full strength for some time (maybe never):

.....scientists say it could be years, if ever, before the collider runs at full strength, stretching out the time it should take to achieve the collider’s main goals, like producing a particle known as the Higgs boson thought to be responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass, or identifying the dark matter that astronomers say makes up 25 percent of the cosmos.

The report goes on to explain the technical nature of the problem, for those interested.

Still can't buy in Australia, though

Sony Cuts Prices on E-Books and Unveils Readers

Bah.

Yes, but at what price

LEDs Are As Energy Efficient as Compact Fluorescents

Yet doesn't this mean that that are hardly worthwhile investing in over compact fluorescents until they become closer in cost?

Report explained - news not good

Station ALOHA data reveal ocean acidification

A few posts back, I had a post updating some recent stuff on ocean acidification, and ended noting a study on waters near Hawaii that examined the 20 year history of pH levels. I said it was kind of hard to understand clearly, as at that time I only had a link to the paper itself, and scientists aren't all that good at writing clear summaries.

Anyhow, my guess as to what it meant was correct, as shown in this easier to understand summary linked above:

.....over the two decades of observation, the surface ocean grew more acidic at exactly the rate expected from chemical equilibration with the atmosphere. However, that rate of change varied considerably on seasonal and inter-annual timescales, and even reversed for one period of nearly five years. The year-to-year changes appear to be driven by climate-induced changes in ocean mixing and attendant biological responses to mixing events.

The authors also found distinct layers at depth in which pH declines were actually faster than at the surface. Dore and colleagues attribute these strata of elevated acidification rates to increases in biological activity and to the intrusion at Station ALOHA of remotely formed water masses with different chemical histories.

This seems to me to be a pretty important study, as it is confirmation from long term measurements that the predicted rate of ocean acidification is correct. (The fact that there are bumps along the way is, I suppose, like the difference between weather and climate.)

To the extent that they note that at depth, acidification at times seems to be happening faster than expected, is not good news.

Britain needs nuclear

Nuclear power ‘needed to fill energy gap’ - Times Online

With North Sea oil and gas production in steep decline, Mr Wicks is expected to call for the UK to boost the share of electricity generated from nuclear stations to as much as 30-40 per cent of the total, up from only 13 per cent last year.

He will also propose that the Government should adopt a more interventionist approach to ensure new reactors are built — and in greater numbers — than currently planned.

If a private company treated its employees this way..

...you'd have Sharon Burrows and/or Julia Gillard complaining about the corporation's heartless and incompetent personnel management.

But because it is happening under the Rudd government...

I'm talking about the following extracts from Godwin Grech's response to the Auditor General's report out today. He's a man who did a very stupid thing, but look what he says he was putting up with:

page 101: ...when I returned to Treasury in September 2008 it soon became clear that the 'normal’ rules of direction, reporting and accountability had changed significantly and were oftentimes confused and chaotic.

page 102: My essential point is that the environment I found myself in from late 2008, involved confused lines of accountability, poor overall management and frankly an almost anything goes attitude as long as the relevant policy initiative was delivered on time and the Prime Minister kept satisfied....

page 103: The normal policy development disciplines had broken down, with many policy options, certainly those that I had exposure to, being developed without any real opportunity by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to undertake proper costings, if at all. Relevant portfolio departments were either not involved in the policy development process or were given very limited information or opportunity to contribute.

page 111: I did raise resourcing issues with Treasury Deputy Secretary, Mr Jim Murphy on a number of occasions – both in mid to late December 2008 and again in early January 2009. I was told that options would be explored – but nothing happened. Indeed, the overall resource effort diminished especially after the 5 December 2008 public launch of OzCar by the Prime Minister and Treasurer in Sydney.

And here's the section which indicates how completely thoughtless Treasury was in failing to provide significant assistance to Grech:

page 111 - 112: In addition to the very significant work load pressures that were placed on me, it was well known to senior Treasury management, including Dr Ken Henry, the relevant Deputy Secretary, Mr Jim Murphy, and the relevant immediate supervisor, Mr David Martine, that I was physically impaired and suffered from a complex array of serious medical conditions. This included the loss of my colon, advanced dysmotility and malrotation of my small bowel that resulted in 7 small bowel obstructions since March 2005.

Treasury management were aware that I had a near fatal episode in late 2006 when a blockage resulted in an intestinal haemorrhage which led to septicaemia and acute renal failure. I never fully recovered from this episode having since developed stage 3 chronic kidney disease and metabolic bone disease including osteoporosis. I have suffered a further 3 small bowel obstructions since the near fatal 2006 episode – the most recent in February 2009. Treasury is aware of all of this and was at the time.

Unbeknown to Treasury management – or to me – I was also suffering from chronic clinical depression which doctors believe has been present and untreated for some years.

Given this complex medical condition, and the stark reminder of my vulnerability following my hospitalisation in both February and March 2009, senior Treasury management could – and I say should‐ have taken action to ensure that I got the support that I needed. This did not happen.

Not an Obama fan

Ayman- al Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map

Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaida's second-in-command, said on Monday that Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.

Zawahri also accused US President Barack Obama of conducting a policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues that was bound to end in failure for the Palestinians, Reuters reported, saying that Obama wanted a Palestinian state that would serve as "an extension of the CIA."

"Israel is a crime that should be removed," the news agency quoted Zawahri as saying in an interview with al Qaida's media arm As-Sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.

Someone already done this?

Sneaky asteroids

Lunar Crater Stats Indicate Hidden Population of Asteroids

A new study of the distribution of lunar craters has led to this suggestion (although it is far from the only possible explanation):

...the most exciting and potentially worrying possibility is that there exists a previously unseen population of near Earth asteroids that orbit the Sun at approximately the same distance as the Earth. These have gone unnoticed because they are smaller or darker than other asteroids, say Ito and Malhotra.

A fishy problem

Global Warming's Fish-Sex Effect - TIME

"We found that in fish that do have temperature-dependent sex determination [TSD], a rise in water temperature of just 1.5 degrees Celsius can change the male-to-female ratio from 1:1 to 3:1," says Piferrer, the study's co-author. In especially sensitive fish, a greater increase can throw the balance even more out of whack. Ospina-Alvarez and Piferrer have found that in the South American pejerrey, for example, an increase of 4 degrees Celsius can result in a population that is 98% male.

What makes these findings especially troubling, of course, is that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that ocean-water temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5 degrees over the course of this century — and they may even go up a few degrees more. "If climate change really does result in a rise of 4 degrees, which is the maximum the IPCC predicts, and if species can't adapt in time or migrate, then in the most sensitive cases of TSD, we're looking at extinction," says Piferrer.

The natural history of the guinea pig

Could the guinea pigs from G-Force survive in the wild?

A kid's movie has prompted Slate to explain how the modern version of the guinea pig came to exist. This part caught my attention:

The domestication of guinea pigs dates back to around 5000 B.C., when the native people of Peru and Bolivia started breeding the beasts for food or religious ceremonies. (Or both: One famous Peruvian painting from 1753 shows Jesus Christ and his disciples dining on guinea pig at the Last Supper.)

The link will take you to the painting in question.

It's just as well that Dan Brown hasn't written a book about this. "The Guinea Pig Code" doesn't have quite the same ring.

A leader with too much time on his hands

BBC NEWS | Business | Venezuela's revolutionary reading

Hugo Chavez has come up with the Revolutionary Reading Plan, which involves giving away free books. The list includes some classic literature (Don Quijote and Les Miserable) but also " The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Selected Speeches of Hugo Chavez and State Terrorism in Colombia." Of course.

This is the part that is truly odd:

...another key part of the Reading Plan are thousands of "book squadrons".

These are basically roving book clubs that are intended to encourage reading on the metro, in public squares and in parks.

Each squadron wears a different colour to identify their type of book. For example, the red team promotes autobiographies while the black team discusses books on "militant resistance".

The government say they will spread the word of the benefits of reading to the rest of the community. The opposition say they are the thought police.

What a fun job title that could be: "Commander of No.103 Brown Book Squadron". If it comes with a good uniform, I'd be in that, as long as I am allowed to smack people on the head with (soft cover) publications until they like them.

Experience doesn't help

Second marriages a rocky road for many

I knew the figure for failed second marriages was high, but not this high:

AUSTRALIANS are willing to take a second chance at love, with almost one-fifth of weddings involving a partner who has been married before. However, while only a third of first marriages end in divorce, the figure rises to 60 per cent for second marriages.

A very late review - Super

Well, now that no one is interested at all in my opinion about the moderately-successful-but- already-culturally-insignificant-after-only-3-years movie, Superman Returns, I'll give it anyway. (The reason being it was on commercial TV last night, and for once I was able to sit down and watch a movie from beginning to end.)

Back in June 2006, I posted a bit of Anthony Lane's review, as his generally cool attitude to the comic book superhero genre seemed to match mine.

But I must say, Superman Returns had more pleasures than I expected: it looked great with an obvious big budget; Kevin Spacey proved to be the best Lex Luthor I can recall; and the lead actor (whose name I can't even recall) did a very good job as Christopher Reeve - I mean, Superman. It was just good to hear John William's theme again too.

As nearly every reviewer noted at the time, the Christ analogy was impossible to miss, although I thought there were other allusions to Superman as mythical figure. His pushing the newly created island-continent thing off the Earth reminded me of Atlas, and the subsequent fall through the sky was a bit like a falling angel.

Yet, this same quasi-divinity had apparently shot off for 5 years without realising he had got Lois Lane pregnant.

Talk about your movie mythology trying to have it both ways: all knowing son and saviour hovering in the sky and rescuing people, but not clever enough to use a condom when he bedded Lois in that Super bed that really needed a firmer mattress. Not only that, he leaves for 5 years to check out if Krypton really had exploded (answer: yes) without apparently giving any prior explanation to his girlfriend. Maybe he left a note she didn't get? I don't think his lack of explanation was ever addressed.

Really, this Superman has trouble with priorities, it seems.

Lois in the meantime had settled for a "safe" boyfriend to help raise her son, while evidently still holding a flame for the absent Super boyfriend.

I thought the movie could have played this troubled modern on/off relationship thing more creatively. We were meant to be sympathetic to the boyfriend, who really doesn't know what's going on, but wouldn't it have been good if Superman discovered he was cheating on Lois? He could then be in some jeopardy and Superman has the opportunity to rescue him. Does Superman rescue the schmuck? Maybe he does, but only on the promise that he (the boyfriend) will be faithful to Lois in the future (but wait a minute - that would prevent or delay Superman's own desired re-union with Lois.)

Maybe Superman could rescue him only if he promises weekend custody of the boy with his real Dad. That would be very Supermodern. Oh, I just thought of another variation - the boyfriend could be having a gay affair - how does the modern superhero movie directed by a gay jewish man deal with that? At the very least, the movie could have been turned into a precautionary tale against unprotected sex - with a tie-in range of branded Super condoms ( advertising by-line "Don't make a Super mistake".)

Ah, I'm just being silly. Even with its somewhat unfortunate modern love triangle and lack of backstory to justify our hero's actions 5 years ago, I had a good enough time with it. I rate it MHSE (mostly harmless, somewhat enjoyable.)

French oyster mystery

Plague strikes French oysters - Telegraph

Something is killing the oysters of France.

Here's something I didn't know:

Last year, France's oyster industry – Europe's largest – was hit by its worst crisis since the native European or "Portuguese" oyster was all but wiped out 30 years ago. Since then almost all oyster farms in Europe have been restocked with the Pacific "creuse" oyster from Japan and British Columbia.

So the oysters I can get from France are exactly the same species as those farmed in much of Australia. (However, I generally go for Sydney Rock oysters over Pacific, as I don't really like the larger size of the latter.)

Foreigners be warned

Pocket knife lands tourist, 74, in lockup | The Japan Times Online

As I love to point out injustice in Dubai, perhaps it's only fair that I also link to a story of the problematic application of justice in Japan:

On July 2 in Shinjuku, a 74-year-old American tourist walked into a police box to ask directions. Inside the koban were an older (senior) officer and his younger (rookie?) colleague.

The American asked where Kinokuniya bookstore was, and the older police officer responded by asking the tourist if he had a pocket knife. The American, being the law-abiding citizen that he is, said "yes" and handed it to the senior officer. After a quick measurement of the blade, the officer arrested the 74-year-old for having a pocket knife 1 cm over the legal limit.

The most shocking part to the story is that a new revision of a law regarding pocket knives was subject to a moratorium until July 5, meaning those possessing knives that violate the new rules had until July 4 to dispose of them! Moreover, two other American tourists were arrested that same day at the same koban.

The conclusion to this man's story was nine days in a holding cell. Welcome to Japan!

It is strange, but in a law abiding and supremely polite place like Japan, it is still generally a good rule of thumb that foreigners should avoid approaching the police (in their neighbourhood bases known as "koban") for assistance unless absolutely necessary.

Eco notes from the Guardian

* Some novelist I haven't heard of goes for a drive in a new model Prius and makes some funny comments. Such as:

The car gently forces you to drive in an environmentally responsible way, and that means you don't have to feel so guilty about the fact you are transporting yourself to buy a pack of decaf tea from Tesco's in three tonnes of hi-tech metal.

* There's an anti-wind power column that makes a good start:

How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build a new development on a stretch of wild moorland. It will be nearly seven miles long, and consist of 150 structures, each made of steel and mounted on hundreds of tons of concrete. They will be almost 500 feet high, and will be accompanied by 73 miles of road. The development will require the quarrying of 1.5m cubic metres of rock and the cutting out and dumping of up to a million cubic metres of peat.

The answer is that if you are like many modern environmentalists you will support this project without question. You will dismiss anyone who opposes it as a nimby who is probably in the pay of the coal or nuclear lobby, and you will campaign for thousands more like it to be built all over the country.

The project is, of course, a wind farm – or, if we want to be less Orwellian in our terminology, a wind power station.

but then goes off the rails by arguing that technology is never, ever the real answer. Just how far back towards the campfire he wants us to live is not made clear.

* Roger A Pielke Jr has a good column on how CO2 response is still all in the realm of symbolism politics, so realistic goals are subject to somewhat silly criticisms:

Evidence for this claim can be found in the global reaction to the commitment made by the Japanese government last month to reduce emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The announcement was met with derision. For instance, Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, expressed shock at Japan's lack of ambition, stating, "I think for the first time in two-and-a-half years in this job, I don't know what to say."

Yet, Pielke notes, it is not as if the Japanese targets will be easy to reach:

To meet its 2020 target, Japan expects to do the following: construct nine new nuclear power plant plants and improve utilized capacity to 80 percent (from 60 percent); build about 34 new wind-power plants producing around 5 million kilowatts; install solar panels on 2.9 million homes (an increase of 2,000 percent over current levels); increase the share of newly built houses satisfying stringent insulation standards from 40 percent today to 80 percent; and increase sales of next-generation vehicles from 4 percent (2005) to 50 percent (2020).

And furthermore, the British target is virtually impossible:

The U.K. targets are a perfect example of what happens when symbols become disconnected from reality. To achieve a 34 percent reduction from 1990 emissions by 2022 while maintaining modest economic growth would require that the U.K. decarbonize its economy to the level of France by about 2016. In more concrete terms, Britain would have to achieve the equivalent of deploying about 30 new nuclear power plants in the next six years, just to get part way to its target. One does not need a degree in nuclear physics to conclude that is just not going to happen.

Towards the end, Pielke makes this point, which I find quite convincing:

...policies focused on targets and timetables for emissions reductions avoid questions about the realism and costs of the steps actually needed to reduce emissions. As Stanford's David Victor explains, "setting binding emission targets through treaties is wrongheaded because it 'forces' governments to do things they don't know how to do. And that puts them in a box, from which they escape using accounting tricks (e.g., offsets) rather than real effort." Until policies focus more directly on improving efficiency and decarbonizing supply, accounting tricks will dominate the policy response, just as occurred in budget policy.

Takeaway innovation

Gulfnews: Food outlets in Dubai safeguard themselves

The Gulf News has been following the story of a couple of kids who died soon after they ate takeaway food from a Chinese restaurant in Dubai.

Yes, those deaths are sad, but it's hard not be a little amused at the innovation this has led to. Yes, it's a case of parachuting in the lawyers, who no doubt helped the disclaimers that some outlets are forcing customers to sign:

"Please note that the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates takes no responsibility whatsoever for any food or beverage bought from the hotel or any outlets of the hotel for personal consumption.

---

---

"This is due to the fact that the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates has no more control or any way of ascertaining the safety and hygienic condition of this food and beverage once outside the premises. Please sign the waiver below to indicate your acceptance of the terms stipulated.

"Otherwise the hotel is unable to permit any food or beverage to be purchased," the disclaimer reads.

In another story noted in Gulf News, a Sudanese female journalist is challenging her arrest for wearing trousers in public. Several women were arrested by the "public order police", and "all but three of the women were flogged at a police station two days later."

Mind you, some women turned up in trousers at the court in support of the journalist, so it would appear that there is indeed a Great Trouser Showdown currently taking place in Khartoum.

It's a different world out there.

The problem with Tamiflu

Tamiflu causes sickness and nightmares in children, study finds - Times Online

A total of 103 children took part in the London study, of which 85 were given the drug as a precaution after a classmate received a diagnosis of swine flu. Of those, 45 experienced one or more side-effects. The most common was nausea (29 per cent), followed by stomach pain or cramps (20 per cent) and problems sleeping (12 per cent). Almost one in five had a “neuropsychiatric side-effect”, such as inability to think clearly, nightmares and “behaving strangely”, according to the research, published in Eurosurveillance, a journal of disease....

Health officials in Japan have recommended against prescribing Tamiflu to teenagers over fears it causes a rise in “neuropsychiatric events”. The researchers said that clinical trials had shown that about 20 per cent of adults reported side-effects of either nausea or vomiting after taking Tamiflu.

Something I don't understand ...(part of a never-ending series)

As far as I can make out, the English system of nationalised health services is too "socialist", with too little choice for the average punter. The US system is far too private/profit orientated, and is ridiculously inefficient when you compare money spent with actual health outcomes.

For all of its faults (and you have to assume that there is always going to be someone within every country that is not happy with some aspect of their own system,) the Australian system seems to be in a relatively happy position in the middle of those two extremes.

Does anyone in America recognize this? I certainly haven't heard anyone there going around pointing to us an example of a successful mixed system, with adequate universal cover but a system that allows those on moderate income to chose the level of additional private benefits they want. But it's true, isn't it?

Latest gay accessories

Three cats, two men — and now two babies

....the two dads — who outlaid $40,000 to collect eggs from one woman and rent a womb from another to gestate their babies in a Mumbai fertility clinic, are determined to bring another vexed issue into the public domain.

If they can pay taxes and raise children (one of them is the biological father and on the birth certificate, but they will not identify him publicly), why can’t they be lawfully wed, they argue. Tomorrow, in a bid to focus more attention on the issue of the gay marriage, Mr Elwell and Mr West will dress the little girls in symbolic rainbow coloured woollen hats (their neighbour’s mother knitted the garments for them), and take part in a mass mock wedding ceremony at the top of Collins Street.

Wrong in too many ways to count.

Surprising news items

* Archaeologists in Israel find a first century cup with a clear inscription on it, but it'll be weeks before they understand what it means. Somehow, I expected first century Aramaic would be more easily read.

* A horrifying crime has one less victim than you would expect. (Baby cut from mother is found alive, with the presumably crazy women who decided this was a quick way to experience parenthood.)

* China gives birth to almost enough people for another Australia every year. And has 13 million abortions per year (perhaps more if unregistered clinics were counted.) As far as the top in the rate of abortion, however, Russia still easily holds onto that dubious title. What exactly holds back that country from effective use of contraception?

Colbert interview of the week

OK, so the week's not up yet, but Colbert's interview with Arianna Huffington allowed him to be pretty funny:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Arianna Huffington
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Tasers

Amusing review

The Bleat, Monday, July 27

James Lileks has seen Watchmen at home and didn't like it. A pretty amusing list of reasons why is at the link.

Let's see, maybe the best section is this:

Reminded me of the Dark Knight comics: Reagan was President, which somehow explained why the cities were such horrid dystopias. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? Some how? Same here: the reign of Nixon (Jeezum crow, Nixon) ties in with urban decay, filth, moral calumny, and all those incidents of debauched decline Rorschack decried as he walked the mean streets. If there’s one thing we know for sure about hated iconic Republican presidents, they prefer a society full of prostitutes, child killers, drug addiction, and other sundry pleasures of modern life.

Uh huh. Imagine someone setting a comic like this in the 90s, with Dr. Bronx and the Jokester heading off to Bosnia to kill Serbs at the request of President Clinton - who’s in his third term, because he suspended the Constitution to prepare for Y2K - and later the Jokester, fresh from killing Vince Foster and Ron Brown, argues with InkBlot over who killed the American Dream, with InkBlot insisting it was supply-side economics. Meanwhile, ominous newspaper headlines note that North Korea has activated a plutonium factory, and the League of Solemn Scientists move the hands on a prop clock.

De-romancing the shaman

Do shamans have more sex? Why New Age spirituality is no more pure than old-time religion. Slate Magazine

Good article here on shamans not exactly being pure, spiritual purveyors of ancient wisdom.

The breakthrough mankind has been waiting for*

Long Duration Space Underwear

As Japan's first astronaut to spend long duration missions on board the International Space Station, Koichi Wakata has had the opportunity to do all sorts of interesting experiments the past few months. For example, he conducted several different cellular growth and crystal growth experiments, and has even flown a magic carpet in space. One other experiment has been – shall we say – kept under wraps. Wakata has been wearing the same underwear on board the ISS for two months.

"(For) two months I was wearing these underwear and there was no smell and nobody complained,” Wakata, speaking in Japanese, said through an interpreter during a press conference this weekend from the ISS. “I think that new J-ware underwear is very good for myself and my colleagues."

* Alternative title: "The breakthrough mankind has been holding its breath for"

Odd

Homicide By Mentally Ill Has Risen In England And Wales

There was also a rise in the number of homicides by people with schizophrenia – from 25 in 1997 to 46 in 2004 and an estimated 40 in 2005.

Professor Louis Appleby, Director of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, said: "There has been an unexplained rise in the number of homicides by people with mental illness and we now have to try to understand why this has happened.

"It is important to emphasise that the increase has not occurred in mental health patients. It is also important to keep these findings in perspective. The risk of being a victim of homicide in England and Wales is around 1 in 1,000 and the risk of being killed by someone with schizophrenia is around 1 in 20,000."

If I lived in England, I would not find those figures particularly comforting.

Solar thermal progress

Technology Review: Cheaper Solar Thermal Power

It seems from the article above that the company Stirling Engine Systems may be doing better than my preferred stirling engine company - Infinia Corp. (I still say that Infinia's solar power dish has a much cleaner, cooler looking design, though.)

Sadly, Infinia say they are not aiming to get into the small scale residential market. If you need a Megawatt, they are interested, but unless you are planning on setting up a small scale aluminium smelter in your backyard, that is a little excessive for most houses.

Ah what a pity. I was hoping that if the neighbours annoyed me (and believe me, they do), I could use a roof mounted Infinia dish to set fire to their washing on the clothes line.

Big drop

No. of foreign tourists visiting Japan plunges 29% in Jan-June

Wow, that is a big drop off in tourist numbers for Japan.

Big

Kingston Unveils the World’s First 256GB USB Flash Drive

Mind you, it says it will only be "built to order", so it's not likely to be cheap. Maybe it comes with leather upholstery in a selection of colours?

But really, this is remarkable, isn't it? The last desktop I bought for home (about 5 years ago; it's on its last legs - I found the motherboard had a burnt bit on it last weekend!) had a hard drive of 40GB. I know that's tiny by hard drive standards, but flash drives with hundreds of GB capacity still surprise me.

Ocean acidification update

It's been a while since ocean acidification has been mentioned here. There have been more studies reported, often with confusing or uncertain results:

* it was reported a month ago that tank studies with fish indicate that they grow bigger ear bones in more acidified water. This is the opposite of what was expected. Does it matter? No one knows, but there is speculation it might affect affect their navigation and orientation. Presumably, the studies to look into that are underway.

* The latest studies for coral are quite mixed. One tank study on a species of Mediterranean temperate coral indicates that it is not particularly sensitive to more CO2. (Although it is noted that this might be because it is relatively slow growing coral.) Yet, another study shows a mechanism for how a Hawaiian species can suffer more erosion under higher CO2. A third study, this time on an Atlantic species, indicated that it was indeed sensitive to decreased aragonite saturation (which is a consequence of increased acidification.) The overall picture then: still not good seems a fair conclusion.

Update: overnight, another paper has turned up indicating that coral around Bermuda:

...will experiences seasonal periods of zero net calcification within the next decade.... The Bermuda coral reef is one of the first responders to the negative impacts of ocean acidification, and we estimate that calcification rates for D. labyrinthiformis have declined by >50% compared to pre-industrial times.

* So, what about phytoplankton?, I hear you say. (Assuming you are still awake.) Well, this seems unexpected, but it seems some tank tests in coastal waters off Norway indicate that higher CO2 can lead to a phytoplankton bloom which then leads to more dissolved iron being in the water. (I don't quite follow how that works.) Anyhow, the abstract notes that this may be a good thing:

"If applicable to the open ocean this may provide a negative feedback mechanism to the rising atmospheric CO₂ by stimulating marine primary production."

Of course, whether this happens out in the deep ocean is not known. And are phytoplankton blooms in shallow areas necessarily a good thing? Certainly, some algal blooms are not good.

* On a related issue, if AGW does increase water temperatures, it seems that it will cause a significant shortening of the lifespan of many cold-blooded creatures:

“We were intrigued by the fact that that pearl mussels in Spain have a maximum lifespan of 29 years, while in Russia, individuals of the same species live nearly 200 years,” said Dr. Munch....

For the study, the researchers looked at lifespan data from laboratory and field observations for over 90 species from terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.

They studied organisms with different average longevities-from the copepod Arcartia tonsa, which has an average lifespan of 11.6 days, to the pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera, which has an average lifespan of 74 years.

They found that across this wide range of species, temperature was consistently exponentially related to lifespan.

“It is interesting to consider how cold-blooded species are likely to react in the face of global warming. Because of the exponential relationship between temperature and lifespan, small changes in temperature could result in relatively large changes in lifespan. We could see changes to ecosystem structure and stability if cold-blooded species change their life histories to accommodate warmer temperatures but warm-blooded species do not,” said Salinas.

It surprises me that a consistent relationship between temperature and life span was not noticed before.

* Someone should tell scientists how to write more clearly. There is a lengthy paper here about pH testing of the ocean near Hawaii over a number of years, but I have trouble working out exactly what it concludes. I think it indicates that ocean surface pH is dropping as expected (subject to seasonal variability), but the picture at depth was more complicated than they expected.

Merton and orthodoxy

'I was tired of a Christ who had evaporated' - Catholic Herald Online

I've been posting about religion a fair bit lately, but what the hey, it's my own, relatively unread, blog.

I have never read anything by Catholic monk Thomas Merton, as the spirituality aspect of religion has always held limited interest to me, and I also thought he was promoted as quite a faith liberal.

This article indicates that this view of Merton is misleading (although it certainly points out he was anti-war, anti-technology [another reason why I am not running to buy his books] and all-round political liberal.) The key is this quote:

In fact, he consistently rejected Christian theologies that no longer respected orthodoxy and tradition. "My coming into the Church was marked by a pretty strong and dazzled belief in the Christ of the Nicene Creed," he wrote. "One reason for this was a strong reaction against the fogginess and subjectivity and messed-upness of the ideas about Christ... in various kinds of Protestantism. I was tired of a Christ who had evaporated."

Well, nice to hear.

Looks change

Recently, I was watching with the kids some episodes of the 1980's Spielberg produced TV show Amazing Stories. (Happily, they quite like it. I have to admit it was a pretty uneven series, definitely with too much tendency to the whimsical in the story ideas; but some episodes were great.)

But here's the trivia I wanted to note. The 1980's was dominated by what I would call a glowing, warm style of cinematography. Spielberg was particularly fond of it in his heyday (think ET especially,) but when I was watching Amazing Stories, it struck me that there was a lot of non-Spielberg stuff from the 80's that have the same look. From memory, if you look back at the popular music videos of the day, you would see what I mean, although I am hard pressed to name titles right now.

It is a look that I still find quite pleasing.

Cinematography now, on the other hand, seems to much more commonly favour a blu-ish, washed out colour, hard edged, fluorescent-light style of look. This is especially deemed to be appropriate to hard edged stories (crime and drug stuff in particular.) Maybe it is partly due to the increased use of video in both cinema and TV over film stock?

Whether it's the aesthetic fashion of the day, or partly technological, I have to say I miss the warmth of the 1980's.

A bit of a puzzle

It would seem that doctors in Britain are getting more and more certain that high doses of THC (such as in strong strains of cannabis) can cause psychosis, even in people who have shown no previous disposition for that illness.

Yet, in a study that was not publicised much, a retrospective study of the rate of schizophrenia and psychosis in Britain did not indicate any increase in the period following substantial increase in the use of cannabis.

Worth more research, I am sure, before it can be fully understood what is going on. (Or before you could be very confident that legalisation would be a safe measure for public health.)

Marked as a "fail"

Andrew Bolt (and Jennifer Marohasy, naturally) pointed people last week to a new paper, published in a proper peer reviewed journal, by AGW skeptic Bob Carter and others. It argued that (my paraphrase) ocean cycles were behind most late 20th century warming.

Given Bob Carter's reputation, I was immediately doubtful that it proved what he was indicating it did. Indeed the paper seems to have been pretty comprehensively taken down. See Real Climate (well of course, skeptics will say) but more importantly, follow the links they have that explain why the paper fails to say anything significant. The explanation is very clear, and it will be very interesting to see if Carter and his fellow authors respond at all.

It's also interesting to note that even Lucia, who is sometimes quoted by Bolt and other skeptic blogs, seems to think the paper is a non-event (or even might mean that warming is worse that we thought!) I think we can safely count it as a fail for CO2 warming skepticism, peer-reviewed or not.

As I was saying...

Archbishop of Canterbury attempts to paper over Church schism -Times Online

Dr Rowan Williams has, I believe, made exactly the same point that I set out in a recent post. Here's the Archbishop's way of putting it:

Referring to people in gay relationships, he added: “Whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions.” Therefore, he stated, they should not be ordained priests and especially not bishops.

“It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences. So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.”

Dr Williams compared those in gay relationships to heterosexuals who cohabit.

He wrote: "A person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires."

Actually, that is so clearly put, it's almost hard to believe they are his words. (It's also fairly conservative sounding for him to be using the phrase "chosen lifestyle" in the context of gay relationships.)

Big pop coming

The China Bubble's Coming -- But Not the One You Think | Foreign Policy

A pretty easy to comprehend explanation of the Chinese bubble.

Atheists with too much time on their hands

Ranks of atheists grow, get organized | csmonitor.com

Some 15 percent of Americans claim no religious affiliation, up from 8.2 percent in 1990, according to Trinity College's American Religious Identification Survey, released in March. Also, the American Humanist Association claims 20,000 financial supporters. That marks a doubling from five years ago, says spokeswoman Karen Frantz.

Yeah, fine, knock yourselves out. But it's this bit of silliness that's the reason for this post:

In Florida, atheists are pioneering a new ritual: de-baptism. Since last year, American Atheists' Florida state director Greg McDowell has been donning a mock clerical robe and officiating at services where family and friends come to watch the baptized renounce their baptisms.

The events spoof baptisms by using blow-dryers in the place of baptismal waters. They culminate in certificates for the "de-baptized" and letters to churches requesting that the names of those de-baptized be removed from baptismal rolls.

Sounds just like a bit of silly publicity seeking, I suppose, but the article notes that there is a bit of a split in the non-belief movement as to the value of ritual:

In some ways, the lack of structure or ritual has been a defining characteristic of atheist groups. McGowan notes that many atheists bristle at ritual because it feels too religious or superstitious. American Atheists' Mr. Silverman insists, "there are no rituals with us."

But America's 27 Ethical Societies, which attract many nontheist attendees to their humanist "platforms," or services, see growing interest in rituals, ranging from children's education to weddings, according to membership chairman Thomas Hoeppner.

Through ritual, "you build up not just common intellectual values, but the emotional and personal connection with people," says Mr. Hoeppner, a member of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago. "That's what it's all about."

Rituals need tradition behind them to make them compelling, so deliberately created new ones always seem a bit, um what's the word I need? - naff is the best one that comes to mind.

We like to consider all possibities...

Scientists try to stop schizophrenia in its tracks

Interesting story on schizophrenia "prodrome" - the early symptoms of possible coming psychosis:

In the prodrome, people can see and hear imaginary things or have odd thoughts. But significantly, they understand these experiences are just illusions, or they have a reasonable explanation.

In contrast, people with psychosis firmly cling to unreasonable explanations instead. When someone interprets an odd halo of light over a bedroom doorway as an urgent message from a dead relative, "that's when they have gone over to the psychotic side," said Dr. Thomas McGlashan, a Yale University psychiatry professor.

Either that or they are misinterpreting a message from the Mysterons.

Sunspot uncertainties

Is the Sun Missing Its Spots? - NYTimes.com

Not a bad summary of what is known and not known about sunspots, sunspot cycles, and the weather.

In all cases, the answer seems to be: not very much. For example:

With better telescopes on the ground and a fleet of Sun-watching spacecraft, solar scientists know a lot more about the Sun than ever before. But they do not understand everything. Solar dynamo models, which seek to capture the dynamics of the magnetic field, cannot yet explain many basic questions, not even why the solar cycles average 11 years in length.

Predicting the solar cycle is, in many ways, much like predicting the stock market. A full understanding of the forces driving solar dynamics is far out of reach, so scientists look to key indicators that correlate with future events and create models based on those.

Who would have thought that a rotating ball of gas big enough to burn your eyes out if you're not careful is still that hard to understand?

Balcony fears re-enforced

Lawyer victim of 'skylarking' tragedy - Yahoo!7 News

This is a pretty awful story, of the type that you think might only appear in the movies:

The 41-year-old was "skylarking" when he fell, it has been reported.

Mr Catts fell 17 storeys and landed on the fifth floor landing of The Sebel Suites hotel at 11.45pm on Thursday night, in an accident witnessed by his wife of eight months, Katrina...

It is believed Mr Catts' wife tried to save him as he clung to the balcony railing before his fall.

Well, I get a little nervous being on any apartment balcony more than a few stories high, so the idea of "skylarking" on one 22 floors up is fairly foreign to me. I don't mind heights per se; I just don't like being near the edge of a drop that it would take little effort to fall over. (Time for more self disclosure: years ago, I once explained to a Catholic girl I was dating that I don't like the idea that I could have a sudden un-controllable urge to jump over the rail. She said she felt exactly the same way. Maybe it's a residual Catholic fear of temporary possession, or something!)

Not your average summer camp

Gaza campers stage 'Schalit abduction' at ceremony | Jerusalem Post

According to Israeli defense officials, more than 120,000 Palestinian children are spending the summer in Hamas-run camps. In addition to religious studies, the children undergo semi-military training with toy guns.

At a recent summer camp graduation ceremony, the children put on a show reenacting the June 2006 abduction of Schalit. Present was Osama Mazini, a senior Hamas political leader, who is in charge of the Schalit negotiations with Israel on behalf of the terrorist group.

The article has a photo of the cute little guys re-enacting the kidnapping of Schalit. (By the way, I assume Schalit has not undergone Stockholm syndrome, otherwise he would have been on display.)

Only 10% here

Microbes ‘R’ Us - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

I'm not feeling very topical today, so just some more unusual facts from the New York Times:

The typical human is home to a vast array of microbes. If you were to count them, you’d find that microbial cells outnumber your own by a factor of 10. On a cell-by-cell basis, then, you are only 10 percent human. For the rest, you are microbial. (Why don’t you see this when you look in the mirror? Because most of the microbes are bacteria, and bacterial cells are generally much smaller than animal cells. They may make up 90 percent of the cells, but they’re not 90 percent of your bulk.)

A bit of mutilation for a Monday

Sexual mutilation, madness and the media

This appeared a couple of weeks ago in Peter Stothard's blog in The Times: a fairly lengthy account of controversy in the 1860's in England about a London surgeon who did clitoridectomy as a "cure" for mental illness.

His practice was written up in The Times, which brought the issue into the open, and led to an investigation. The anti-clitoridectomy faction of medical opinion won the day.

A remarkable story.

A useful post

Andrew Bolt does one of those useful "remember what they used to say" posts about Labor and "jobs snobs".

He also points us to an article in The Australian about how bad the figures are for the world being able to achieve the goal of 450ppm CO2. It would seem, essentially, that everyone may as well stop pretending it can be achieved.

When your co-worker strips...

...it's probably because he is Japanese, and having to put up with a fairly remarkable government idea:

Takashi Kadokura used to strip down to his underwear when working late because of the heat.

"We couldn't concentrate on our work," said Kadokura, 37, then an economist for Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. "The air conditioning was set at 28 degrees and we weren't allowed to change it."

The experience led Kadokura to question the government's Cool Biz policy, which recommends companies set air conditioners at 28 degrees to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Kadokura says sweaty offices lead to lower productivity, and estimates the policy reduced economic growth in 2008 by ¥653 billion, or 0.13 percent of the gross domestic product of ¥497.4 trillion

More details in the Japan Times: Cool Biz said to undermine productivity

Changes in Christianity

There are two posts of interest at the First Things blog about the changing demographics of Christianity:

* first, Episcopalians, despite (or, more accurately in my view, because of) their progressive reputation are dwindling. First Things quotes from another blog these figures:

In a historic shift, more people are now attending Assemblies of God churches on weekday nights than worship in Episcopal Churches on Sunday mornings.

Average mid-week evening attendance at Assemblies of God churches is now 756,263, according to the denomination’s official statistics.

Average Sunday attendance, among Episcopalians, is 727,822.

In the past 45 years, Episcopal Church membership has dropped from 3.4 million in 1964 to 2.1 million in 2007. At the same time, the inclusive membership in the Assemblies of God has skyrocketed, from 572,123 in 1964 to 2.9 million in 2008.

* Secondly, this post, looking at world-wide changes in Christianity, contains lots of surprising figures, such as this:

This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called “Christian Europe.”...

This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined...

For several years the world’s largest chapter of the Jesuit order has been found in India, not in the United States, as it had been for much of the late twentieth century.

On the same issue, John Micklethwait, editor of The Economist, had been doing the media rounds in the last month or two promoting his recently co-authored book "God Is Back", which argues that religion is indeed catching on in lots of new countries. (I think he views the house church movement in China as particularly big.) There's an interesting, even if not sympathetic, review of the book in the New Statesman.

The toughest job

Readers will recall that I am making my way through the surprisingly enjoyable book "Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome". This weekend, it was the chapter about slavery, and I have to say that I did not realise that things could be as tough as this:

"They were bound to promote their master's welfare at every turn, because there was no limit to the punishment which he could inflict on them if he was dissatisfied; and they were encouraged to preserve his life by the strongest of all imaginable deterrents; if he was murdered, the whole of his slave-household were put to death without even the formality of a trial, on the grounds that, since they had not prevented the murder as they should have done, they were all accessories after the crime. ...

In AD 61, stung by a personal grievance, a slave of the City Prefect Pedanius Secundus killed his master; the whole vast slave household of four hundred slaves was executed..."

The book points out that this prompted a riot in Rome (people were by this time starting to think the law was - literally, I suppose - a bit of an overkill), and that:

"...despite C. Cassius' eloquent protest that society would collapse if the slaves were not killed, a number of senators had doubts and troops had to be fetched in before the executions could take place."

Talk about your hard nosed conservatives!

Things did improve later for slaves, with Hadrian restricting those who could be killed to those slaves near their murdered master at the time of his death.

But the book also makes the point that well treated slaves were often very loyal to their master.

By the time of Christianity, despite the church institutionally accepting slavery, individual Christians often, at the moment of their conversion, freed their slaves. A good way to mark a conversion, I think.

Look to the skies

Consulting with clouds: A clear role in climate change

Interesting story on new research on clouds and their likely future role in global warming. The news doesn't sound great:

Using observational data collected over the last 50 years and complex climate models, the team has established that low-level stratiform clouds appear to dissipate as the ocean warms, indicating that changes in these clouds may enhance the warming of the planet.

Furthermore, this is something that a lot of current models don't show this, apparently:

...most of the state-of-the-art climate models from modeling centers around the world do not reproduce this cloud behavior. Only one, the Hadley Centre model from the U.K. Met Office, was able to reproduce the observations. "We have a long way to go in getting the models right, but the Hadley Centre model results can help point us in the right direction," said co-author Burgman, a research scientist at the University of Miami.

Together, the observations and the Hadley Centre model results provide evidence that low-level stratiform clouds, which currently shield the earth from the sun's radiation, may dissipate in warming climates, allowing the oceans to further heat up, which would then cause more cloud dissipation.

Presumably, poor modelling of cloud behaviour could have something to do with the recently reported study that CO2 alone did not account for anywhere near enough warming at PETM, 55 million years ago. Skeptics took the uncertainty from that study as encouragement. People like me took as more of a sign that we should be uneasy that warming from CO2 could be at the high end of the current estimates due to poorly unstood feedbacks.

Really necessary?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Wireless power system shown off

This wireless electricity technology that's been talked about from time to time looks ready to actually take off.

I don't quite understand why it has appeal: sure, you can do with a few less electricity cables around the house, but get to have many more magnetic fields too.

They are saying magnetic fields are not dangerous to humans. I don't know enough about biology to know, but I would have thought most people would take a cautious attitude towards it.

Besides, I thought magnetised iron had been found not only in bird brains, but human too? (Yep, my memory is correct.) Maybe people who use this system will become completely hopeless at sensing direction (since magnetite in birds was believed to be related to their navigation skills.)

Wasn't there was a Heinlein short story (or novella?) in which the health of the human species was being weakened gradually by wireless power system?

You heard this caution here first, or last, or somewhere in between.

Research for the future

Experiments Show 'Artificial Gravity' Can Prevent Muscle Loss In Space

....researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have conducted the first human experiments using a device intended to counteract this effect — a NASA centrifuge that spins a test subject with his or her feet outward 30 times a minute, creating an effect similar to standing against a force two and half times that of gravity. Working with volunteers kept in bed for three weeks to simulate zero-gravity conditions, they found that just one hour a day on the centrifuge was sufficient to restore muscle synthesis.

One of the interesting things about long term colonies on the Moon or Mars would be whether the people (or especially, a baby conceived in low gravity) would weaken sufficiently so as to find it impossible to return to Earth.

Maybe just low gravity is enough to provide sufficient muscle tone, but no one will know until we can go there. I imagine mouse or rat breeding on the Moon would be a very interesting experiment.

There was a made-for-TV movie I half watched a few years ago about a Helium 3 mining colony on the moon. In it, a woman fell pregnant, but was spending some time each day in a centrifuge type device to make sure the foetus was used to higher gravity. (I think she was returning to earth to actually give birth.)

It may turn out to have been quite accurate.

Reality fat, and comedy woes

Next on TV: A family of 300-plus folks, heavy girlfriends and, yes, Ruby

Disturbing news of new American reality TV concept:

TLC has ordered six episodes of a show titled, "One Big Happy Family," chronicling the life of an obese North Carolina family: dad, 340 pounds; mom, nearly 400 pounds; and two teenagers, 330 and 340 pounds each.

There's also a overweight dating show on Fox.

Will this trend soon be on Australian TV? Was "The Biggest Loser" an imported concept?

It's all academic to me, I guess, since I don't think there has ever been a reality TV show that I have been able to watch for more than 10 minutes.

The only problem is that surely "reality TV" draws resources away from worthwhile drama, comedy, and other creativity in TV. I mean, with the demise of Scrubs, there is not a sitcom worth watching. (Maybe 30 Rock, which I have never seen due to its odd scheduling here.)

As for the current alleged successes in TV comedy:

Two and a Half Men: a half-clever concept (playing on Charlie Sheen's real life playboy image,) but humour based on wildly promiscuous lifestyles wear thin after a very short time if that is the only joke that exists about a major character. (Having it as a raison d'etre of a more minor character is fine - the whole show doesn't revolve around them.) So I can't warm to this show, and always feel a little queasy when young actors are partaking in double entendre and other low brow humour.

How I Met your Mother: can't get into it. Seems weak and convoluted.

State of the Union: not a sitcom, but Tracey Ullman's latest sketch show. I've always thought she is very talented, with shows that feature a pretty appealing eccentricity. But - she's got too much control now, it seems, and the language and some of the skits are in very poor taste. (We don't really need jokes about ejaculate in a woman passenger's hair, do we?)

The Chaser's War on Everything: haven't cared much for it for a long time, due to its inability to know where to draw the lines between clever, stupid and tasteless. Should have ended about midway last season.

Wind problem for Great Britain

Wind power plan blown off course

The Government was facing a growing credibility gap over green jobs last night as environmental campaigners and trade unionists united to fight the closure of Britain's sole major wind turbine plant.

Only last week, ministers proclaimed a green employment future for the UK involving 400,000 jobs in environmental industries such as renewable energy – yet this week they are declining to intervene over the forthcoming closure of the Vestas Wind Systems plant on the Isle of Wight, with nearly 600 redundancies.

Mars within reach (eventually)

Ion engine could one day power 39-day trips to Mars - New Scientist

Ahem. If people want an idea of what it's like to have been a space enthusiast for the last 43 years, I can tell you that I remember in primary school I once gave a short "topic talk" on the promise of ion engines. This was based on a very detailed book at the local library (in the kid's section, mind you) about the future of space technology. I can still kind of remember the look of the book.

I also remember coming up with a detail about ion rockets which was a bit of a guess, but years later I read something that indicated it was correct.

Mind you, I don't remember anyone in the class room being particularly impressed. I think the teacher's reaction was one of half interested approval, but for all I know she may have thought it was all science fiction.

So, 40 years later the idea is still being talked about as a possibility, and work on them continues at a very slow pace.

Maybe my grandchildren will take a cruise to Mars on a ion rocket, and on the way read this digital evidence of my foresight (and high self regard.)