Right back at ya

Sex, religion, and Kagan's right to privacy. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

Andrew Sullivan, amongst others, thinks it should be clarified whether or not Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should is lesbian.

William Saletan quotes Sullivan right back at him, and argues strongly why it should be left alone.

Funnily enough, one would have thought that Sullivan could see the silly games that could be played with such enquiries: he's the (now) married gay man who was (according to his 2001 sex seeking ad) nonetheless "into bi scenes."

Very strange

BBC News - China children 'hacked to death' in new school attack

It appears that there have now been six cases in China of a crazy person going to a school and attacking children randomly (and killing a great many) in the space of a few months.

This is not the sort of thing that I would normally expect to be the subject of copycat behaviour. Suicides: yes, we know they go up the more they are publicised. But going out to kill kids you don't know? Very odd, I reckon.

Funny and instructive

Strange to say, but Colbert Report seems to be taking more care this season to have some guests to actually explain international situations. Tonight's segment on Greece was both pretty funny in parts, and instructive:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Greece Wither Soon - Scheherazade Rehman
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Famous friends

H G Wells: Another Kind of Life by Michael Sherborne: review - Telegraph

In this review of a new biography of HG Wells, there is much mention of his sex life, but the most fascinating snippet is this:

....for many years he was at the heart of Britain’s artistic and political life, with an address book like a global Who’s Who. There can't be many writers who criticised Stalin to his face and survived, counted Charlie Chaplin among his friends, and persuaded G B Shaw and G K Chesterton to dress up as cowboys and roll down a hill in a beer barrel for a home movie.

Chesterton was shaped like a beer barrel, from what I recall. I can't imagine him fitting in one with Shaw.

What were they up to?

gulfnews : Bahrain arrests 14 Chinese with fake Japanese passports

Lower the jury duty age

Psychologists say babies know right from wrong even at six months

How do you tell that a baby knows right from wrong? It's pretty entertaining research:

In one experiment babies between six and ten months old were repeatedly shown a puppet show featuring wooden shapes with eyes. A red ball attempts to climb a hill and is aided at times by a yellow triangle that helps it up the hill by getting behind it and pushing. At other times the red ball is forced back down the hill by a blue square. After watching the puppet show at least six times the babies were asked to choose a character. An overwhelming majority (over 80%) chose the helpful figure. Prof. Bloom said it was not a subtle statistical trend as “just about all the babies reached for the good guy.”

In another experiment the babies were shown a toy dog puppet attempting to open a box, with a friendly teddy bear helping the dog, and an unfriendly teddy thwarting his efforts by sitting on him. After watching at least half a dozen times the babies were given the opportunity to choose one of the teddy bears. The majority chose the helpful teddy.

And at 21 months, most will even "punish" the bad toy:

A third experiment used a puppet cat playing with a ball with a helpful rabbit puppet on one side and an unhelpful rabbit on the other. The helpful rabbit returned the ball if the cat lost it, while the unhelpful rabbit stole the ball and ran off with it. In this test five-month-old babies were allowed to choose one of the rabbits, and most chose the helpful one. When the test was repeated with 21-month-old babies they were asked to take a treat from one of the rabbits. Most took the treat from the unhelpful rabbit, and one even gave the rabbit a smack on the head as well.

Maybe I should have been a psychologist. A day at the office could be quite fun.

Severe danger avoided

gulfnews : Joggers furious as Sharjah shuts parks in the morning

I am not quite sure where the municipality of Sharjah is in the Gulf region, but you can't accuse them of not taking action on serious matters:

Sharjah Municipality has just passed a law that keeps all parks closed to the public until 4pm.

They will stay open until 10pm.

The law includes free-entrance neighbourhood parks and those which have an entrance fee.

A Sharjah Municipality official told Gulf News the new rule aimed to prevent gardeners from staring at female visitors.

"The municipality cannot accept the responsibility of having its employees staring at women and making them feel uncomfortable," said Sharjah Municipality Agricultural Department head Yaseen Mohammad.

What a mad place.

Still singing (sort of)

Julie Andrews: She's climbed every mountain - Profiles, People - The Independent

Julie Andrews surely doesn't need the money, but is starting a (sort of) singing tour in England again. (She's warning that her voice is not what it was. Maybe Whitney Houston could have considered the same tactic!)

Anyhow, this potted history of her life, which I have read about elsewhere, claims as follows:

Like her fellow musical star Judy Garland, Andrews became both a gay icon and a family favourite.

Really? I thought her screen and private lives both lacked the strange melodramatic style which seems to be the key characteristic that marks actresses as gay icons.

In any event, she seems to enjoy a broad reputation as a very decent person.

That time of year again

It's more likely to be rats in the belfry, possums

The Age reports on how the onset of winter means rats start moving into the roofs of Melbourne houses.

It's exactly the same in Brisbane. Sitting at the computer the other night, I heard what sounded like slight roof tile scrapping. I suspect it was my first visitor of the season squeezing its way in between tiles.

Time to bait the ceiling space again. Pity this causes them to die and decompose there too...

Could be interesting

The LA Times gives top marks to Laura Bush's memoir. The New York Times quite liked it too. It must be pretty good.

Took them a while to work this one out

Mice pull pained expressions : Nature News

Humans are not the only ones to grimace when they are in pain, scientists have found. Mice show their discomfort in the same way.

When you look at the photos in the article, it seems a little odd they didn't know this before.

Nuclear in the earthquake zone

Monju fast-breeder reaches criticality | The Japan Times Online

I see that Japan has just restarted a prototype fast-breeder reactor, which was halted some years ago after a sodium leak.

It's odd, isn't it, that one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world should also be the one forging ahead with developing a new type of nuclear reactor plant that has one good feature, and one somewhat scary one (molten sodium.)

As such, I am a bit unsure about whether to be impressed or worried.

Further comments on New Zealand

Some observations from the recent short New Zealand (south island only) holiday:

Things I liked a lot:

* the mussels. These featured in maybe 3 meals while I was there, and although I have been wary of their chewiness when trying them in Australia, the New Zealand meals did them well and I quite enjoyed them. The black mussels which are farmed in Australia can be very hit or miss in terms of the amount of mussel meat you'll get: at some times of the year, the common kilo pack really is barely enough for a meal for two. That never seems to be a problem with green lipped mussels, which always seem to be very substantial. I also liked the large "scoop your own" vats of live mussels in every New World supermarket we went to.

* the scenery. Well, naturally.

* good service: they do seem to be doing a pretty good job at customer service for tourists in that country. There was one grumpy person we came across twice (at the rest stop on one of the main highways.) But her unhappy demeanour perhaps stood out all the more because everyone else seemed very cheery.

* the wine: of course, we stuck to New Zealand wines, and not just the sauvignon blancs. (While the later are no doubt very good, am I the only person who sometimes finds some of New Zealand examples have too much of that famous "herbaceous" character?) However, the sauvignon blanc we did try were great, but we also really liked the other whites (and a pinot noir) too. They were all very modestly priced (nothing more than $15 per bottle) and seemed high quality for the price. (It seems to me, in fact, that New Zealand wine should be cheaper in Australia, considering its price over there, and the advantageous currency exchange.) Clearly, it's a country that is doing wine well.

* smoked food. Colder places seem much more interested in smoked food. Last year, for example, while visiting Adelaide, I was happy with the wide variety of smoked fish available at the central markets. The best smoked thing we ate in New Zealand was smoked venison. In fact, it seemed to be a pretty common entree in restaurants: smoked venison served with a bit of blue cheese. Very tasty.

Things we were slightly disappointed with:

* soft cheese. We tried a couple from the supermarket, and tasted one at a small cheese maker's, but neither of them were really good examples of (I think) brie. The country seems to do your regular hard cheeses very well, but soft cheeses, for some reason, they don't seem to have mastered as comprehensively as in Australia.

* beer. Tried a few, found all of them pretty unremarkable. No doubt this may just be bad luck (as may the soft cheese too.)

Things it's lucky you have a bit of cash left over for:

* The $25 per adult airport departure tax. Fortunately, I was told, it will soon be added to airline ticket prices, which is clearly the more sensible way to go.

Waiting for Nietzsche

There's no doubt that intellectual interests in life can change over time. An unappealing topic in your youth can gradually change to one which you do want to read up on in your later adulthood.

So knowing that, and given the number of people who seem to like to debate the merits of Nietzsche, I have suspected for some years now that, someday, I will probably get the urge to read him (or even about him).

Yet it is also entirely possible that this day may never come, if this review (by Francis Fukyama, no less) of a new book on him is any guide.

This is the final paragraph:

Young appropriately underlines the notion that postmodernism, with its embrace of diversity in values, is no different from the 19th-century modernism that Nie­tzsche hated. He would not have cele­brated alternative lifestyles, non-­Western cultures or the right of every fourth grader to be his or her own value-creator. Acknowledgment of the death of God is a bomb that blows up many things, not just oppressive traditionalism, but also values like compassion and the equality of human dignity on which support for a tolerant liberal political order is based. This then is the Nie­tzschean dead end from which Western philosophy has still not emerged.

I suspect there'll be people out there debating the accuracy of this representation of Nietzsche (there always is: has there ever been a philosopher more frequently defended as having been misunderstood?) But I think this Fukyama quote does help explain my lack of interest in Nietzsche: I guess I have also always thought of him as an exponent of "dead end" philosophy, and that's something about which I just feel doesn't deserve a lot of effort to learn about in detail.

But as I say, who knows? In 20 years time, maybe I'll be reading him.

Bovine construction method

Dezeen » Blog Archive » Trufa by Anton García-Abril

From the above post at Dezeen:

Photographer Roland Halbe has sent us his photographs of a holiday home in Spain by Anton García-Abril of Ensamble Studio, cast in the earth and hollowed out by a cow.

It's actually kind of interesting...for a small house built by a cow.

That's interesting...

BBC News - Incredibles' Bird to direct fourth Mission: Impossible

Brad Bird, who has directed three terrific animated films (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille) is to make Mission Impossible IV as his first live action film. I suspect he'll do a much better job with the action than John Woo or JJ Abrims did on the last two.

There's at least one other promising precedent for an animation director turning to live action: Andrew Adamson did Shrek I & II, then did a great job on the two Narnia films.

Speaking of babies...

This documentary is attracting some good reviews:



UPDATE: Salon has an insightful bit of commentary about the film, and documentaries generally.

Times are changing

Study: 1 in 7 U.S. Babies Born to Moms 35+ - CBS News

What's more surprising is this figure:

While most women giving birth are doing it within the context of marriage, researchers said a record 41 percent of births were to unmarried women in 2008. That's up from 28 percent in 1990, according to the study, "The New Demography of American Motherhood." The trend crossed major racial and ethnic groups.

This is not a good thing, if you ask me.

A service to the community

As I have observed previously, one of the benefits of having a small blog readership is that it is easy to check via Sitemeter where my referrals have come from. Therefore I know, for example, that, years after I posted about it, nearly every day I still have at least a couple of visitors who have arrived via Googling "Julie Gillard's ears". There are many more fans of big ear lobes out there than you might expect.

But I see today I had a visitor via Google with a particularly specialised interest in the Catholic Church, as this was the search term:

"naughty nuns stories dvds videos ets etc how to jion via catholic chuerch"

I am glad to see that this blog is indeed performing a vital community service.

Three unusual weather stories

It's a risky business drawing connections between particular examples of unusually bad weather and climate change. Half the time anyone does this, someone will come up with an example from the last 100 years which was in fact worse. Still, I am getting the impression lately that there is something a little peculiar going on. My, very cautiously offered, evidence:

1. The Tennessee floods. Record breaking rain, and a meteorological explanation given for it in the CSM.

2. Rain in the Arctic in April. This is, it seems, very, very unusual at this time of year.

3. This morning: a deadly tornado and storm in China, which is, according to the BBC, pretty unusual.

Greece explained

Greek lesson in the perils of overspending

Tim Colebatch does a good job at giving a concise summary of what's been going on in Greece. 

Happy blog-a-versary

My last post reminded me, by virtue of my searching for an old post here, that this blog has just turned 5 years old. Yay.

That's some sort of achievement, I think, given that it's all written by yours truly with only the occasional short break while on holidays.

Keep those cards and donations coming*. (I don't even bother putting a Paypal button on here any more, but if anyone wants permission to send me money, just send me an email and that can be rectified!)

Which also reminds me: no comment yet on any of my lake, mountain, water and/or duck photos of New Zealand. That's it, I'm bringing out the sheep photos now:



* As if, you cheap bastards. :-)

Smelly ape sightings

In search of the skunk ape » Big Story » Valdosta Daily Times

A skunk ape seems to be a skinny relative of Bigfoot, and some people think they have seen one in South Georgia, USA, recently.

As I noted here way back in 2006, I did once know someone who was scared mightily by a strong, foul smell and some crashing around the bush sounds while he was camping  in some State forest near Brisbane.  The association of strong smells with sightings of odd creatures has interested me ever since.

No good will come of this

Steven Spielberg is to direct War Horse - Telegraph

Spielberg is apparently to direct a boy and his horse novel set in World War 1. But the bad news:

For fans of Morpurgo, it is also good news that the screen adaptation is being written by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall, both past masters at bringing a tear to the eye.

Richard Curtis! I hate all his post-Blackadder work.

Need a stiff drink?

African moonshine: Kill me quick | The Economist

In a Kenyan slum:

The equivalent of $1 is enough to buy four glasses of illegally brewed chang’aa—and oblivion. Some drink the local special, jet-five, so called because the fermentation of maize and sorghum is sped up with pilfered jet fuel. It can damage the brain. Elsewhere in Nairobi, chang’aa is spiked with embalming fluid from mortuaries. The name, meaning literally “kill me quick”, is well chosen.

And Uganda may have this distinction:

The UN’s World Health Organisation reckons that half of all alcohol drunk in Africa is illegal. Neighbouring Uganda may consume more alcohol per person than any country in the world. Much of this is waragi, a banana gin. Some 100 Ugandans died from toxic waragi in April alone.

Not worth the effort

Mind Hacks: Paradise learnt

An interesting story here of a man who, starting at the age of 58, has pretty accurately memorised the whole of Paradise Lost (a mere 10,565 lines.) He's now 74 and still got it on (in?) his brain.

Do such amazing feats of memory training help your general cognitive abilities though? Apparently not:

Although not formally tested, JB's everyday memory is apparently normal for his age, with his exceptional memory for Milton's poem apparently arising from his relentless practice and dedication.

This is a common pattern in mental practice or 'brain training' style scenarios where we get better at the tasks we repeat but that improvement doesn't seem to carry over very effectively into other areas of mental life.

So I guess some mornings he still can't find his car keys, but at least he can recite line 8,576 of a poem while he's looking for them.

Smile your way to 100

Longevity subject to lifestyle

Professor Richmond and her team studied 188 Australians who had made it to 100, and found that maintaining social networks, keeping physically and mentally active, and being open to change were common traits.

“About 20 to 30 per cent of the likelihood of living to 100 is because of your genes. But that leaves 70 to 80 per cent up to environmental factors,” Professor Richmond said.

“The major finding of this study is the impact of personality.”

Sounds a little dubious to me, but what do I know?

Plenty more where they came from

There are many photos of lakes and mountains on my hard drive that I am yet to post here, and I may just keep doing it until someone says something nice about any of my photos.

Much trickier than a cat up a tree

Bear rescued from tree in Oxnard, on the way back to wild | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Have a look at the photo to see what I mean.

Unlucky for some

Are You Living in a Former Meth Lab?

According to this article in Discover, living in a house that used to be a methamphetamine lab is decidedly unhealthy:

The chemicals used in methamphetamine production are highly toxic and can include not only pseudoephenadrine—the main ingredient in meth and active ingredient in decongestants—but also 32 other precursor chemicals. These include acetone, the active ingredient in nail polish remover, and phosphine, a widely used insecticide.

Home-cooking meth spreads toxins to every inch of the room where the meth was cooked and beyond. Nothing escapes contamination—the carpet, walls, furniture, drapes, air ducts, even the air itself becomes toxic. "Ingesting some of these chemicals, even a tiny drop, can cause immediate death," said Smith.

There are specialist meth lab clean up businesses in America:

In dealing with toxic chemicals, most meth lab clean-up crews follow general guidelines. In the room where the meth was made, they scrub all surfaces, repaint the walls, replace the carpets and air filters, and air out the property. However, there are no national standards for meth lab cleanups—regulations differ from state to state. And in some states, getting a license to decontaminate a house is as easy as taking a few hours of class and a written test. "There are some bad certification methods out there. You could be a pizza delivery guy, study for a month, pay $250 and be certified," said Joe Mazzuca, a methamphetamine contamination expert and CEO of Meth Lab Cleanup, a nationwide meth-lab-specific cleanup company based in Boise, Idaho.

Finally, guess the State which is the meth lab capital of the world:

And although meth houses are more concentrated in certain states—Missouri is the meth capitol of the world, with 1,471 labs discovered in 2008 alone—there are meth houses in all fifty states, and they can be found in posh towns.

What a distinction. And why Missouri?

Revkin doesn't care for "clean coal" either

Coal Sans CO2: Appealing Pipe Dream - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

I see Andrew Revkin thinks CO2 capture from coal is a pipe dream, literally:

Overall, I have yet to see anyone rebut the simple calculations of Vaclav Smil, the resource and risk polymath at the University of Manitoba, who has shown how capturing and processing just a small percentage of today’s CO2 from coal combustion would require as much pipeline and other infrastructure as is now used globally to get oil — a costly commodity — out of the ground. Imagine the price required on carbon to make that doable beyond boutique scale.

Great moments in British legal history

Bid to impose asbo for wearing low-slung trousers dropped | Society | The Guardian

Prosecutors have abandoned a legal attempt to make a young man pull his trousers up, it emerged today.

Ellis Drummond, 18, was facing an asbo preventing him from "wearing trousers so low beneath the waistline that members of the public are able to see your underwear". He would have been banned from displaying his underpants anywhere in public in the borough of Bedford, and wearing a hood up in any public place in the area.

Somewhere last week, I think it was in New Zealand, I did spot the lowest worn pants by a stupid teenager ever. I mean, the top of the back of his jeans sat at the base of his backside, so that his entire buttocks would be exposed if it weren't for his underpants. It looked very strange.

Surprised by salmon

During last week's drive through the south island of New Zealand, I was surprised to pass by a couple of salmon farms in the middle of the country, which obviously were based in fresh water. As Tasmanian salmon farming is in the ocean, I kind of assumed that salmon would not happily live all their life in fresh water. Seems I was wrong.

At the Mt Cook Salmon website, they talk of the history of salmon farming in that country:

In 1900 the first attempt was made to ship Sockeye ova (eggs) to New Zealand from Canada which had been gathered from Weaver Creek , British Columbia in 1898. This shipment turned bad en route. A second shipment of 500,000 ova was supplied free of charge by the Canadian Fisheries Department, collected from the tributaries of Shuswap Lake in the Kamloops district of British Columbia. This time 160,000 survived and were hatched at the Hakataramea Hatchery near the Waitaki River .

The bulk were carefully liberated into streams feeding into beautiful Lake Ohau . However, instead of running to the sea, and returning to fresh water to spawn (as is the normal life cycle) the Sockeye developed into a non-migratory population.

This is the only self-sustaining population in the Southern Hemisphere and forms the basis for the fish farmed today by Mt Cook Salmon. Chinook salmon introduced around the same time established normal migratory patterns and can be caught in the major South Island east coast river systems today.

I remember when visiting the Salmon Ponds in Tasmania many years ago (it's a historic trout hatchery, actually), it told the story of how some early fish pioneer tried to introduce salmon to Tasmanian rivers by importing fertilised salmon eggs (not an easy feat when they had to be shipped from England), then releasing them in the rivers and hoping that they would head out to sea and back to the rivers to spawn. They did leave the rivers, but never returned.

I always thought it was a sad image, this man going to the rivers every year for a decade or two, waiting forlornly for his cherished salmon to return.

But now that I think of it, the Salmon Ponds themselves contain some giant salmon, as well as very big trout, in its freshwater ponds, so I must have known then that salmon could spend all their life in fresh water. I must concentrate more on keeping my salmon knowledge current.

Incidentally, I did enjoy one very good salmon meal in New Zealand, in a Japanese restaurant which grilled the skin crispy, had a teriyaki sauce and put it on a bed of wasabi flavoured mashed potato. (The mild wasabi mash was very good of itself.) I thought the salmon was less fatty than Tasmanian salmon, and now I see that Mt Cook Salmon does claim this is a feature of its product:

Our salmon live in fast flowing cold water and develop firmer flesh with less inter-muscular fat. This makes for a tastier firmer textured fish.

Well, another reason to visit New Zealand again.

The shrinking children of Japan

Number of children in Japan falls to record low for 29th year in row | The Japan Times Online

From the report:

In a report issued on the eve of Children's Day, a national holiday, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said kids comprised 13.3 percent of the population as of April 1.

I wonder what the equivalent figure (for under 15 year olds) is in Australia.

Here we go - that just took one Google - it's at about 19%. I thought we might be higher than that.

Not great news for coral

New study sheds light on corals' susceptibility to temperature change | e! Science News

It's about coral and their symbiotic algae (the loss of which causes bleaching), and here's the bottom line:

"The differential mortality that we witnessed suggests that the relationship between certain populations of Pocillopora and the species of algae they associate with is quite stable," said Warner. "And this stability, ultimately, is an Achilles heel for Pocillopora. The inability of the corals to shuffle their symbionts or to establish symbioses with different species of algae means that we may see a significant loss of coral populations in the future, especially if extreme temperature disturbances, such as the cold anomaly we documented in 2008 or the hot anomaly that took place in 1997, become more frequent or severe."

Back and forth on Limbo

A Doctrine in Limbo » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog

You can read a long discussion here on the exact nature of the Catholic Church's teaching on Limbo.

All quite arcane, but of some interest.

It also reminds me: in a book I never quite finished on the history of Christianity in Japan, the point was made that the Jesuits found one of the greatest problems was getting people to accept the teaching that their deceased ancestors, who had never heard of Jesus Christ, were simply never able to reach heaven by an unfortunate circumstance of the time in which they had lived. Given the heartfelt reverence with which the Japan viewed their deceased relatives, many felt this was simply a hurdle which prevented them from accepting Christianity.

Priests and models

Catholic sexual abuse scandal sharpens church rift over what a priest should be - CSMonitor.com

A good article here on the debate over what type of priest the Catholic Church should aim for today. The complaint by some is that the current Pope wants to urge a model that some consider inappropriate for the modern, urban setting many work in:

Pope Benedict this spring put forward the Vatican model priest at the end of his letter to the Irish church. Jean Marie Vianney, a 19th century French priest who overcame a lack of education to serve his flock 16 hours a day or more and was known for his radical piety, is the model. Mr. Vianney’s talent for reading thought and tales of his levitation have also brought a cult of mysticism and secrecy around him; he is venerated by hardcore groups like the Society of St. Pius X, whose namesake pope beatified Vianney in 1904.

"Vianney is thought to be a useful model for many new Catholic priests in rural or developing nations," says Andreas Batlogg, editor of the Jesuit-based Catholic intellectual journal Stimmen der Zeit in Munich, Germany.

Yet Benedict’s choice of Vianney caused loud and palpable groans in many parts of US and Europe. Modern-oriented Catholics and theologians see the choice as a political model of a priest closed off from society, overly idealized, hard for young Catholics to relate to, and one whose effect will be to increase a sense of distance between priests and ordinary people, and promote a view of priests more spiritually gifted than regular Catholics.

“We need an example, but this is a pastor of 230 people in a small French village in the 19th century,” says Mr. Batlogg.

Well, more levitating priests would give a certain supernatural zing to going to Mass that's been missing for a while!

I don't mean to sound too sarcastic, though. My support for relaxation of the celibacy rule means the priesthood would comprise more a leadership which is not as set apart from the laity as the priesthood of old. But, with fewer and fewer priests, there is no doubt that more services (not actual Masses, but whatever they call the distribution of Communion when a priest is not available) will be lead by non-priests anyway. I would prefer to have married priests than these Mass substitutes that people envision.

Still, I can see the appeal of a priesthood that does retain some degree of separation from everyday life, so my feelings about this are somewhat mixed.

A funny line

From Mind Hacks:

The Independent covers the frankly mind-bending news that David Cronenberg is to make a film on the relationship between Freud and Jung with Keira Knightley playing Jung's lover. I would have gone for Bruckheimer for director myself.

An unhealthy habit

Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant Arab women requires urgent attention

I suppose Catholic nuns must have had the same deficiency, but then they weren't usually pregnant either.

Proof of holiday

Guess where I have been, from my photographic clues:

This country has very pretty ducks...


and enormous pigeons:


It has impressive bodies of water, that come with mountains...


and ducks:


Through the mountains there are some roads:


and some dangerous-looking landing approaches (click to see that white dash really is a jet):


(You can click on all the photos to get the best impression, by the way.)

Even the mushrooms are pretty in a storybook sort of way:


The accommodation has improved since the 1860's goldrush:


Now, even the shopping centres come with ridiculously scenic backdrops:


It has snow, though not much in autumn:


But it does have autumn colours:


There are more lakes, and lots of people willing to throw themselves towards them from great heights:


And did I mention ducks on the lakes?:


Yes, it's New Zealand, a country so photogenic that I suspect merely sending the camera alone via a stamped self addressed parcel would still result in a bunch of pretty landscapes imprinting themselves on the memory card.

There are some more things I need to say about NZ, but it will have to wait until my mind resumes full blogging mode.

Just in case you were wondering

I'm travelling. Back soon.

Made with the approval of aliens

I was vaguely aware of Australian based director Phillipe Mora, who seems to have made a remarkable number of barely noticed films in his day, but I hadn’t recalled that he directed the alien abduction movie “Communion”.  (Not that I ever saw that one either.)  In any event, for some reason, Mora is talking in the Sydney Morning Herald today about how it came to be made, giving us this amusing anecdote:

In 1986 I dined with Dr Andrija Puharich, famed para- psychologist, Tesla expert, UFO proponent and magic-mushroom maven was was reportedly funded by the CIA in the 1950s to undertake mind-control research. He introduced me and my wife to a little person, a woman he described as his "psychic bodyguard". Our hostess was a movie executive and we were to discuss my forthcoming film, Communion. Halfway through, Puharich excused himself, saying he had to telephone the aliens to get their OK on me. I said to the psychic bodyguard, "I didn't know the aliens had a phone number?" She replied, "Oh yes, they do." Puharich returned and declared, "Everything is fine; they approve you!" I was hoping he'd say they would also finance the movie or guarantee distribution.

Of course, this anecdote may not be entirely true, but I like it anyway.  It’s certainly less cringe-worthy than a certain other anecdote about Australian film maker circles.

One of the secrets of life

Richard Glover writes today about the European travel disruptions:

One woman from Birmingham told the Herald midweek that she was staggered when informed she might have to wait a fortnight before she could travel home: “I passed out, just fainted, from the sheer shock,” she said.

Really? The news was so unexpected she was rendered unconscious? Is Sydney Airport now like the scene of a Jim Jones massacre — scores of people flat on their back mumbling, “the horror, the horror”?

Personally, I feel like fainting when told that flying is possible: me and 400 people inserted into a metal tube and then hurled into the sky in the expectation we will be served very small packets of peanuts and then land, some hours later, in a different country.

I like that last paragraph in particular.   I think I may have said this before here, but like Richard, I have never gotten over the technological wonder that is flying.   Yet I don’t think that I would like a job that involved flying so often that it did become routine and I no longer reflected on how improbable it is that I am having a drink while hurtling higher than Everest through thin, instantly asphyxiating air of Antarctic temperature from which I am separated by bits of not-so-thick perspex and aluminium skin, all while watching some crappy movie.   (Well, mostly crappy.  The only exception I’ve experienced to the normal rule that an inflight movie can never be absorbing  was Shakespeare in Love.  Yes, I felt a bit teary by the end, but then maybe that was partly the effects of jet lag too.  This was especially remarkable given that I was viewing it on one of those old blurry projector systems.)

I imagine that too much flying is probably like living beside a beautiful Australian beach, which I did for a couple of years some time ago.  At one level you can still appreciate the beauty, but there’s no doubt it does become less of a wonder over time.   I certainly remember that the longer I lived there, the inclination to go for a swim got more and more put off  until the most perfect of weather conditions.   No, it’s better to have the enjoyment of going there with just enough frequency that it never completely loses novelty.

So this is one of Opinion Dominion’s secrets of life:  know enough to be impressed by flight, but if you start doing it so much that you no longer get at least a bit excited by the prospect, start doing it less.

Top marks for Brisbane house

Dezeen » Blog Archive » Hill End Ecohouse by Riddel Architecture

Don't be put off by the fact that it's called an "eco house".  This is a very cool looking residence, built in a very innovative, or at least rarely attempted, way.  What's more, it's in my home town and it has made slick design/architecture website Dezeen.  I'm very impressed.

The dulcet tones return

For those who just can't enough of William Shatner's unique way of mauling a song in a completely unselfconscious fashion, here''s the latest example hot off Youtube:

Whales and iron

Whale poop is vital to ocean's carbon cycle - life - 22 April 2010 - New Scientist

Saving endangered baleen whales could boost the carbon storage capacity of the Southern Ocean, suggests a new study of whale faeces. Whale faeces once provided huge quantities of iron to a now anaemic Southern Ocean, boosting the growth of carbon-sequestering phytoplankton.

So says Stephen Nicol of the Australian Antarctic Division, based in Kingston, Tasmania, who has found "huge amounts of iron in whale poo". He believes that before commercial whaling, baleen whale faeces may have accounted for some 12 per cent of the iron on the surface of the Southern Ocean.

Handy to know.

Considering Heaven, again

Heaven: A fool's paradise - Faith, Opinion - The Independent

Johann Hari review the Lisa Miller book about the history of heaven, about which I have commented recently.

While he is an atheist, he at least gives us more detail of Miller's argument about the Jewish development of the concept. It's interesting, but I don't have time to comment more right now.

A bit out of the blue?

Japan proposes sharp cut in minke whale catch quota in Antarctic Sea › Japan Today

Japan has proposed catching up to 440 southern minke whales each year for what it calls research purposes in the Antarctic Ocean, down from 935 at present, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday. Japan hopes to resume full-fledged whaling in its coastal waters in return for the proposed quota reduction in the Antarctic Sea, the sources said.

How many (and what type of) whales do they expect to catch in their coastal waters?

Way to attract young voters, Tony!

No more dole, Tony Abbott warns the under-30s | The Australian

Six of the attendees confirmed yesterday that Mr Abbott had raised
the idea of banning welfare payments for young people to encourage them
to fill the thousands of jobs emerging in states such as Western
Australia and Queensland.

"He said he was thinking more and more about it, with a view to formulating something on it," said one of the participants, who asked not to be named.

Another recalled: "He definitely said it was something he was considering as a policy."

Maybe Tony is getting kickbacks from the ALP's advertising agency. They come up with their fantasy quotes for the next campaign; Tony then makes them real.

Good question

Environmental Health Perspectives: Will Ocean Acidification Erode the Base of the Food Web?

Strange lack of knowledge

Seoul warns on nuclear talks if North linked to sinking - ABC News

South Korea says it now appears that an external explosion possibly
caused by a torpedo ripped the warship in two.

Seoul is warning that if North Korea is found to have been involved
it will take the issue to the United Nations Security Council for
possible sanctions.

I find it hard to believe that South Korea does not know the truth of how this happened yet.

Bring me the bucket

1 in 10 revelers plan on consuming more than 40 units of alcohol in a single evening | e! Science News

It's all about heavy drinking when out on the town in the UK. The report contains this bit of information that would suggest letting people know their BAC is not a good way to get them to drink less:

Just over half (51%) of the people who reported feeling drunk at interview said they intended to drink more alcohol that night. The researchers also found that when individuals were informed about their blood alcohol level, it was more likely to encourage them to drink (nearly 1 in 4) than to reduce their alcohol consumption that night (less than 1 in 25). Bellis said, "Commercial use of breathalyzers to encourage individuals to drink more has already been attempted in some bars in the UK. As such technologies become more easily accessible there is a real danger it will further increase alcohol consumption."

Oh well. I can always thank a stomach that is more than ready to throw up after its allocated share of alcohol for ensuring I am in absolutely no danger of ever going out to attempt 40 units of alcohol in a night. On the assumption a bottle of wine is about 7 standard drinks, I'm not sure I've even reached 10 or 12 in an evening without vomiting. ( Just thought I would share that with you.)

Fire and ice

Iceland reminds us nature is boss. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Some interesting background stuff about Iceland here from Hitchens, of all people.

Bad volcano

How an Icelandic volcano helped spark the French Revolution | World news | The Guardian

Interesting article last week in The Guardian giving a short history of the disastrous effects of the big Icelandic volcanic eruption of 1783 - 1784.

What next??

Dinner is the theater as food paparazzi converge - latimes.com

The LA Times has an amusing and surprising report on the trend for people to photograph their food. It's starting to annoy some restaurants so much they have a "non flash only" policy.

But, here's the most ridiculous digital photo development I have heard:

Camera manufacturers are joining the trend. Nikon, Olympus and Sony sell cameras that offer "cuisine" or "food" settings, which adjust to enhance colors and textures on close-ups.

How come they haven't come up with a "shower/bedroom flesh tone" setting for men, then? Would be used more often, I bet.

And now to reveal my hypocrisy: I must admit I have taken a few food photos over the years, but - I think - only in Japan, where it has novelty value and presentation is extremely important. No, that's different from taking photos of food in your local restaurant - honest.

Another explanation of the "missing heat"issue

Tracking the energy from global warming

It's quite a discrepancy they've got going since 2005.  For what's it's worth, my hunch would be that it's a problem both with ocean heat content calculations (being a bit too low) and satellite measurements (being a bit too high.)

All about that coffee

From Dung to Coffee Brew With No Aftertaste - NYTimes.com

This article in the New York Times explains all you would ever need to know about the civet poo coffee business of South East Asia.

I think I'll pass, thanks.

Bad time to be in the vitamin business

Vitamins linked to breast cancer

A major study has revealed that women who take a daily multi-vitamin
pill are nearly 20 per cent more likely to develop breast cancer.

Given the bad publicity that many vitamin supplements have been accruing over the last 5 years or so, I wonder if sales have been significantly affected.

Won't always love you-ou-ou-ou-ah-won't-always etc

Whitney Houston, LG Arena, Birmingham - Reviews, Music - The Independent

It's pretty rare to find such a scathing review of a pop concert, but here it is.

Actually, the Guardian's reviewer from the same concert thinks that there is a bit of an unfair anti-Whitney bandwagon developing, as most reviews said she was OK on some songs. But, there is this:

They say Houston behaved oddly, chatting about nothing in particular for minutes on end, took a 15-minute break only half a dozen songs in, and had trouble reaching some of her high notes.

She does indeed appear to be regularly (see the comments below about the next concert) making a spectacular hash of the famous climax of "I will always love you", as you can see here. It's doubly excruciating because of the long, long break she takes before attempting it, and the whoops and encouragement given by her (not very British sounding) fans.

In fact, if you watch any Youtubes clips of the Birmingham concert, the enthusiasm of the audience is, somewhat puzzlingly in the circumstances, quite high.

The next concert she gave was at Nottingham, and the reviewer writes this:

However, Houston's rendition of the ultimate schmaltz anthem "I Will Always Love You" must have tested even her most loyal followers. It's a challenging ballad, not least if you've been doing extraordinarily damaging things to your upper body for several years. Her voice wheezes and grates through the high notes. There are attempts to plaster over the cracks with octave changes and smiles, but mid-song she stops, sighs and turns around to compose herself. She does finish the number, in a way, but it isn't spectacular and Houston, frozen, knows it. A momentary silence is pierced by the sound of a child crying in the stalls. Quite why left this song to the end is bewildering.

But the on-stage behaviour is perhaps worth seeing on its own:

The songs include moments of genuine bonkersness. During "Saving All My Love for You" she stoops to moisturise her ankles and on several occasions appears to be singing to her shoes.

All a bit sad, in its way.

Unusual holiday destination noted

Reunion Island

It's not often on Getaway that I notice a story on a holiday destination I have never really heard of before, but this week they did an item on Reunion Island, and I really couldn't recall ever seeing anything on TV about this place.

It certainly looks like a spectacular destination for volcano viewing and rugged, green scenery. And with a French heritage, it sounds like quite an exotic destination.

Where's my lotto entry for tonight...

That Catholic issue

There were two interesting articles by a Jesuit, James Martin, in Huffington Post recently about the Catholic sex abuse issue. The best one is about homosexuality not being the "cause" of it. It ends with a comment made by the Pope himself indicating that he doesn't believe that either. The arguments are basically the same as I indicated in my post earlier this week.

His other article, arguing that "it's not about celibacy" either, is less strong. He puts up a strong defence of why celibacy is valued by the Church, but it doesn't sit well with this crucial line in his homosexuality article:

Pedophilia, say experts, is more a question of a stunted (or arrested) sexuality, more a question of power, and more a question of proximity (among many other complicated psychological factors). Simply put, being gay does not make one a pedophile.

Um, doesn't celibacy for men who have (presumably, in many cases) entered into celibacy as virgins (or at least with little in the way of long lasting sexual relationships) just about guarantee a "stunted or arrested sexuality"?

The fact that Catholic priest's rate of abuse is not so bad when compared to society at large is still no reason for believing that removal of celibacy would make it less likely. (I suspect, on the other hand, that with married clergy other forms of sexual scandal would increase, such as affairs with the spouse's friends, and allegations of spouse abuse, etc. But such scandal is less harmful than child abuse.)

Not so good news for Europe

Get ready for decades of Icelandic fireworks - environment - 16 April 2010 - New Scientist

Volcanologists say the fireworks exploding from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland, which is responsible for the ash cloud that is grounding all commercial flights across northern Europe, may become a familiar sight. Increased rumblings under Iceland over the past decade suggest that the area is entering a more active phase, with more eruptions and the potential for some very large bangs.

"Volcanic activity on Iceland appears to follow a periodicity of around 50 to 80 years. The increase in activity over the past 10 years suggests we might be entering a more active phase with more eruptions," says Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on Icelandic volcanoes at the University of Edinburgh, UK. By contrast, the latter half of the 20th century was unusually quiet.

As for the question of whether the current eruption could cause significant cooling: apparently, it's not thought big enough yet to do that.

Update: there's a lot more comparative detail on the size of the Iceland volcano (and why it is not close to be being a big climate influence) here.

By the light of a gecko

The Wisdom of the Lileks

I particularly liked this bit of Lileks this week:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last ten years – aside from the fact that a man who can write a self-refuting line like “Only a Sith believes in absolutes” and be paid a billion dollars – it’s this: web communities create in-breeding. It’s less the planet-holding-hands-and-singing-the-Coke-song than Cities in Flight, domed off, heading on different trajectories. If you doubt this, subscribe to a few Twitter feeds from people who believe different things than you do, and you will find dross passed off as insight, biscuit-crumbs strewn as if they were pearls on silk, all because the writer believes he or she is speaking to an audience that need not be persuaded. The worst part of the internet is its ability to let the pre-persuaded accrete, and declare the sun moves around them.

Oh, and from the same column:

I suppose I could assume everyone who’s sensible and/or hip to the new “cyber” tools for interpersonal avoidance masquerading as immediate communication is already hooked up with the RSS and the Twitter and the Tumblr...

Nun power

BBC News - Kung fu empowers Nepal nuns

Maybe the dwindling number of Catholic nuns is all to do with the lack of martial arts training. Introduce it and we can get them back into schools again as scarier-than-ever disciplinarian teachers.

Some habit he's got going there

Broadcaster Larry King seeks 8th divorce | Reuters

King has been married to seven different women, but this is his eighth divorce, because he remarried one of his former spouses and then divorced her again.

I remember, years ago, that David Letterman had a funny video segment that was a "guide" to being a new wife for Larry King. I wonder if it is around on the net somewhere.

I can't find it, but I did turn up this Letterman Top 10 Complaints of Larry King's new wife.

Tracking heat

'Missing' heat may affect future climate change | e! Science News

This'll turn up on AGW skeptic sites before long, but it is an interesting detailed explanation of Kevin Trenberth's email comment on the "missing heat" problem in climate science which came to light in the "climategate" email leak.

It occurs to me too that the Icelandic volcano may have a cooling effect for a year or so, as may a spotless Sun. (Although it still seems no one really understands the Sun's cycle properly, and sunspots have been appearing again this year.)

Both of these will presumably affect Europe and the Northern Hemisphere, which may mean some cold winters there to come, despite the fact that as soon as those factors go, AGW could kick back in with a vengeance.

This is not what we need to convince politicians of a need for action.

A worrying comment

Is Japan hurtling toward a debt crisis? - The Globe and Mail

Japan's budget, announced last week o kick off the fiscal year, promises to spend a record trillion dollars, and the government must issue a record ¥44.3-trillion of new bonds this year.

The heavy spending and financing are raising worries in Japan about the country's long-term fiscal health, amid concern that Japanese government bonds are turning into an asset bubble fuelling a public debt that is the highest among advanced economies.

Japan's debt, mostly owed to creditors within the country, is more than 200 per cent of annual gross domestic product, compared with 113 per cent in Greece, 50 per cent in Spain, and 69 per cent in the United States, according to the New York-based ISI Group.

This is the part that really caught my eye:

“I'm actually envious of the Greek situation,” said Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at J.P. Morgan in Tokyo, and a former senior official of the Bank of Japan. “They have market pressure forcing them to take action sooner than later. In Japan, even if the government tries to cut spending, social security costs will likely grow ¥1-trillion every year. The government deficit is likely to grow forever, in a sense.”

Near fiction

Accused murderer Des Campbell allegedly said he couldn't have sex with "filthy rich" and "pig ugly" Jenny Fisicaro | The Daily Telegraph

It's rare that you get a murder trial in which the claims are so much like a story you'd find unlikely on a cheap TV police show. (If the characters were richer, it could be a movie.)

It also appears to be an entirely circumstantial case, as (I assume) there are no witnesses to the fall off the cliff, and forensic evidence of a shove in the back is probably hard to come by.

Here's today's report on yesterday's evidence. Fascinating.

Dubious trips to no where

Obama aims to send astronauts to Mars

OK, so maybe getting rocket development more directly into private hands is not a bad idea. (Emphasis on maybe.) But I still can't believe that any sane person would think that the long, confined and radiation ridden rocket trip to Mars would be worth it simply to orbit the planet. Yet this what Obama is suggesting:

"So, we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow."

A trip to an asteroid, provided the astronauts can actually get onto it, may be worthwhile. But orbiting Mars so as to send back holiday pics from orbit that any robot probe could do? I don't think so.

If you want to test on a long term basis whether your rocket's life support system works for 12 months at a time, just do it near the Earth.

South America gets all the good parasites

BBC News - New species of nose-dwelling leech discovered

It must be "New South American Parasite" week:

A new species of leech, discovered by an international team of scientists, has a preference for living up noses.

Researchers say the leech can enter the body orifices of people and animals to attach itself to mucous membranes.

They have called the new blood-sucking species Tyrannobdella rex which means tyrant leech king.

The creature was first discovered in 2007 in Peru when a specimen was plucked from the nose of a girl who had been bathing in a river.

The creature lives in the remote parts of the Upper Amazon and has a "particularly unpleasant habit of infesting humans", the scientists say.

Studies also revealed that it had "a preference for living up noses". The research published their findings in the online scientific journal PLoS One.

Yuck, again.

Germans just don't get cupcakes

Colbert's long-ish segment on fast food last night had many funny bits, but the German trying the cupcake really had me laughing:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Thought for Food - Mentally Ill Advertisers & German Cupcakes
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

New parasitic news

BBC News - Parasite 'a growing stroke risk'

Just what we need: news of a parasite that I haven't heard of before that is gaining global popularity:

Some 18m people worldwide have Chagas disease, caused by an infection with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi.

Recently, researchers discovered having this disease puts the individual at increased risk of stroke due to heart complications and blood clots.

Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America. But emigration of millions of people to Europe, North America, Japan and Australia over the past 20 years has also made Chagas disease an emerging health problem in these countries with the potential to cause a substantial disease burden, say the investigators.

They don't actually explain what bugs can give you the disease, apart from having a photo of some unnamed blood sucker. Wikipedia explains that it is usually via a bug with particularly unpleasant habits:

In Chagas-endemic areas, the main mode of transmission is through an insect vector called a triatomine bug.^[1] A triatomine becomes infected with T. cruzi by feeding on the blood of an infected person or animal. During the day, triatomines hide in crevices in the walls and roofs. The bugs emerge at night, when the inhabitants are sleeping. Because they tend to feed on people’s faces, triatomine bugs are also known as “kissing bugs.” After they bite and ingest blood, they defecate on the person. Triatomines pass T. cruzi parasites (called trypomastigotes) in feces left near the site of the bite wound. Scratching the site of the bite causes the trypomastigotes to enter the host through the wound, or through intact mucous membranes, such as the conjunctiva.

Yuck.

"Hot" tourist spot

Wonder lust: Chernobyl - environment - 13 April 2010 - New Scientist

There's a short item here about what you can do as a tourist in the Chernobyl area. It's still not high on my wish list, no matter how many birds, bears and other assorted wildlife may have moved into the town. (For all we know, some of them may have gained mutant super powers. That would be my concern.)

Fixing NASA

Findings - NASA, We’ve Got a Problem. But It Can Be Fixed. - NYTimes.com

There's some interesting comment in this article about how NASA and space exploration has not followed the usual economies of new transport systems:

The main problem with NASA is not lack of money. Its current budget is about the same size, when adjusted for inflation, as the average during the 1960s and early 1970s. But space exploration has become so costly that this level of financing won’t even pay for a return to the Moon anytime soon, which is what prompted the White House to cancel the Bush administration’s lunar mission.

Normally, once a pioneer makes the first trip somewhere, the cost goes down as others follow and technology improves. That’s why so many colonists could follow Columbus to the New World, and why the masses today can afford to fly in Lindbergh’s path back to Europe. The real costs of shipping freight by rail and air have declined by an order of magnitude since locomotives and airplanes were invented.

In space transportation, though, many costs have actually risen since the days of Apollo.

Since Obama announced his changes to NASA, which include abandoning the current return to the moon rocket development, some have argued that this may work out better in the long run. I don't really know enough to know, but I can certainly see the argument that NASA needed shaking up in some major way.

Local drama

A fairy tale gone wrong - latimes.com

This South East Asian version of an international celebrity marriage gone wrong should have attracted some Australian media interest, I would have thought. Instead, it appears in the LA Times. Odd.

Death for mingling

Cleric's support for men and women mingling in public sparks furor in Saudi Arabia

The Christian Science Monitor notes in the above report:

....Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi recently declared that nothing in Islam bans men and women from mixing in public places like schools and offices.

Supporters of the status quo responded harshly. Anyone who permits men and women to work or study together is an apostate and should be put to death unless he repents, said Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Barrak.

The article goes on to give some examples of Saudi segregation which shows how extreme it is:

Men and women enter government offices and banks through different doors. Male professors teach female university students from separate rooms using closed-circuit television. Companies must create all-female rooms or floors if they hire women. And the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce just announced different work hours for male and female employees so the two don't mix on arrival and departure.

I wonder what outdoor events women attend there. 'Cos I am thinking, if ever there is a brave man in Saudi Arabia, it would be the first male streaker at a women's only sporting fixture.

A specialised conference

34th Annual Larval Fish Conference

Who knew that larval fish scientists had their own conference. I assume the venue does not need to be especially big!

Anyhow, the story at the link is about research indicating that lower ocean water pH may not affect the growth of some reef fish, but it does appear to affect larval fish behaviour, quite possibly in a way that let more of them perish.

Ocean acidification - it's just one big gamble.

And by the way, Andrew Bolt deserves special criticism for posting a Youtube video from pro CO2 site CO2 Science showing how much better a cowpea plant does with CO2 at 1270 ppm compared to one at 470 ppm.

First, we aren't yet at 470 ppm, and it would take many, many decades to ever reach 1270 ppm.

But more importantly, when we start deciding that the planet should be ideally adjusted to suit plants rather than humans, then he may have a point.

Tough sentencing

Man convicted of stealing 2.5 yen worth of electricity › Japan Today

An unemployed man in Osaka City was sentenced to one year in prison suspended for three years on Tuesday for stealing electricity worth 2.5 yen from a shared electric outlet at his apartment building.

Not so anti-religion?

Are Top Scientists Really So Atheistic? Look at the Data | The Intersection | Discover Magazine

Maybe scientists are not as anti-religion, and as uniformly politically left wing, as blogs such as those grouped under Science Blogs indicate. (Really, sometimes it seems that the majority of posts on blogs linked there are more about the science/religion culture wars than actual science findings.)

Expect much criticism of the book at Science Blogs in the near future.

Talking celibacy

The Future of Catholic Celibacy May Be in Doubt - Newsweek.com

This article on the cultural unpopularity of clerical celibacy in Africa was of interest.

There have also been some recent articles (including one at Newsweek) arguing that if you look at child abuse overall, you can't really say that celibacy is at the heart of the Catholic Church's problem. The suggestion that, as a lot of abuse cases involve teenage boys, it is really a "homosexual problem" has also been raised. I can't find his source, but CL at Catallaxy claims:

Speaking clinically, 75+ percent of abuse cases are not paedophilia but crimes of a homosexual nature involving clerics and boys in upper adolescence.

[UPDATE: I see a Cardinal is copping a lot of criticism for making the homosexual link too.]

Yet surely the issue of who the victims are is heavily influenced by availability and (I guess) an older male having an expectation that teenage boys are more likely to enjoy a sexual experience of any kind than a teenage girl (and hence be more likely to keep it a secret). To suggest it's all about gay clergy seems somewhat akin to arguing that opportunistic sex in prisons is a homosexual problem.

[UPDATE: on the other hand, it would seem logical that the priesthood could have attracted young men who were embarrassed about homosexual attraction and hoped to avoid it by promising celibacy. So it would not be surprising if the priesthood had proportionally more than your average number of homosexually inclined men in it, and no doubt some of them have been caught up in sex abuse cases. On the third hand, given that a gay priest who had personally reconciled himself to only ever wanting occasional flings is almost certainly going to find it easier to find a sexual outlet anonymously than a heterosexual priest, maybe such gay priests are less likely to resort to abuse of power for sexual release! But overall, maybe it's all swings and roundabouts (sorry but that probably counts as an unintended poor taste pun) and the rate of approaches to male teens may be the same between self identifying gay and straight priests.]

There is some value, however, in keeping in mind the actual rates of sexual abuse compared to society in general. On the other hand, it is also undeniably the case that it is very scandalous when purported moral leaders fail in this way.

I still consider as a matter of common sense that an adult male with his one and only wife (bearing in mind that a very high proportion of sexual abuse cases are within families by stepfathers) is more likely to have a normalised attitude towards sex which would make sexual abuse much less likely.

As I have argued before, the Eastern Churches position as to celibacy would seem to be a very sensible reform of the Catholic Church. Your average local priest can have his family and give up career progress, so to speak. Those priests for whom celibacy works can keep it and gain the advantage of career progression too.