Very witty, Bernard

I wish Crikey didn't have so much locked behind its paywall, but in any event, Bernard Keane's latest column is free to view, and has many witty lines.  First, talking about Labor:

...a party one step short of seriously considering consulting John Curtin via Ouija Board about how to resolve the Rudd-Gillard tension. It’s a party frozen in fear, terrified that any move it makes will be a mistake but painfully aware that doing nothing means a wipeout. The Liberals went through it in 2007, but Labor, as if to demonstrate that anything Tories can do, they can do better, are taking it to new levels.

Still, at least the Prime Minister has the the crucial Russell Crowe endorsement to add to Hugh Jackman’s support; with a visiting Arnie, the PMO could boast she had Gladiator, Wolverine and the Terminator. Then again, Tony Abbott doubtless has Dad and Dave and the cast of Division 4.

The next part, summarising the Coalition's policies, is pretty much spot on:

So far, there are two kinds of Abbott policies: those that mimic Labor, and those that look terrible. His Direct Action climate change policy is an open, albeit expensive, joke; his paid parental leave scheme is loathed by many within his own party and in the Nationals. His industrial relations policy is essentially a commitment to keep Labor’s Fair Work Act until the Productivity Commission gives him political permissions to go to voters with reforms; his broadband policy is, courtesy of Malcolm Turnbull, NBN lite, although at least 30% and probably more of Australian households will get the full-cream version.

And then the summary of the Coalition's "let's keep Gina happy and her cheques flowing in" Northern Australia project is really terrific:

 The Abbott vision is that northern Australia becomes a cornucopia of tourism, agriculture and mining, apparently unaware it’s tricky to have even two of those together let alone all three, and climate change is hardly conducive to any. Just ask tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef.

In fact, this deep north stuff is downright weird. It’s not just Tony Abbott’s own big government DLP mindset emerging — it’s shared by Coalition MPs with functioning brains like Andrew Robb, the small government types at the IPA and far-Right miners like Gina Rinehart. It’s straightforward, Whitlamesque regional development, complete with Whitlam government policies like moving public servants around. It’s social and economic engineering on a huge scale; there’s not a market mechanism in sight. Indeed, there’s a utopian tone to the whole thing, not dissimilar to the early, funny socialist visions that were untainted by the nasty experience of the real world. It’s as if the Right wants to create a new Australia, one free of all the bad things about the current one like pesky unions, well-paid workers and restrictive environmental regulation, a place where entrepreneurs, with just a little help from taxpayer handouts, some government spending on infrastructure where no one currently lives and a few indentured public servants, can breathe the (admittedly, rather humid) air of freedom and create a more efficient economy.

Funny how Sinclair Davidson (and everyone else who blogs at Catallaxy) simply refuses to talk about the IPA's broad endorsement of this policy.

More self indulgence (as inspired by Catallaxy)

Excuse me while I indulge myself...

For a certain writer at Quadrant

Embarrassing

I've just discovered, while googling my name for a work related purpose, that a young man from England has a twitter account in my name.  His tweets indicate he may well run the most boring twitter account in the universe, as it comprises mainly of short complaints:  "it's so cold today, hate this weather"  "when's my next pay rise?"  "I wish I was on holiday again".  To break up the monotony, there is the occasional "great time last night".  But it's nearly completely devoid of information. 

Come on, lad:   a namesake of me has to be more interesting.  And stop smoking.  (He thanked his Mum for a gift of fags.  D'oh.)

Fish to the foreground

Farmed fish overtakes farmed beef for first time - life - 19 June 2013 - New Scientist

It's just - interesting...ok?

Bringing back Zeus

BBC News - The Greeks who worship the ancient gods

I hope they draw the line at temple prostitutes, nude olympics, and pederasts ceremonially chasing boys, though. 

Some Friday weirdness for you

Yowie sighted at Bexhill - witness asks to stay anonymous | Northern Star

An anonymous, but interesting, claim of a recent yowie sighting in Northern New South Wales.  

Local science makes me proud

Catalyst: Dengue Fever - ABC TV Science

I was very impressed with the state of science in Queensland as shown on Catalyst last night.  

The first story was about the promising looking plan to replace dangerous mosquitoes in Cairns with bred ones that will not carry the dangerous Dengue Fever.  

You can watch the video at the link (or see a transcript.)

The second story was about scramjet research based a the University of Queensland.  They've been plugging away at this for a long time, but still seem to be making advances.  

The story is not yet up on the Catalyst website, but I'll link to it when it is.

Tony loves Gina

   

As inspired by Malcolm Farr's story today which should have been titled "How the Coalition plans a complete suck up to Gina Rinehart."

Quick and early success with vaccination

Sexually transmitted HPV declines in US teens

Since a vaccine against HPV was introduced in 2006, 56 percent fewer girls age 14-19 have become infected, said the research announced by the US Centers for Disease Control and published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

CDC Director Tom Frieden described the findings as a "wake-up call" that the vaccine works and should be more widely used. Currently, about one-third of girls age 13-17 are fully vaccinated.

 I wonder what percentage of 14 to 19 year old girls were formerly infected, though.  Certainly, go a bit older and the figures are big:

The CDC says about 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20s, are infected with HPV, and every year some 14 million people become newly infected.

Hot where it counts

All-Time Heat Records Broken in . . . Alaska?! | Climate Central

It hasn't had attention in the Australian media, as far as I know, but recently Alaska has been having all time record heat, even while England continues with another wet and cool summer (and possibly may have more in the coming years.)

Someone in a comment somewhere on the net said it reminded them of chaos theory, which suggested some systems go through swings from one extreme to another until they settle into a new state.   That did ring a bell with me too.

The criteria as defined by Catallaxy

As far as I can tell, the main criteria by which Sinclair Davidson, Judith Sloan and others who post at Catallaxy for an economist to run Treasury (or the Productivity Commission) is that they have never been identified as expressing belief in, or have worked on, matters relating to environmental causes, and climate change in particular. 

Hence, Davidson says Treasury all started to go wrong when Ken Henry came in back in 2007.  

Of course, one would think that an economist who went out hard on a stagflation warning two years ago might be more circumspect in criticising Treasury for getting their recent years forecasts wrong, but no...

Awesome

More data storage? Here's how to fit 1,000 terabytes on a DVD

In The Conversation today:

 In Nature Communications today, we, along with Richard Evans from CSIRO, show how we developed a new technique to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from 4.7 gigabytes up to one petabyte (1,000 terabytes). This is equivalent of 10.6 years of compressed high-definition video or 50,000 full high-definition movies.

They also point out:

 Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years.

Their two light beam technique, which reduces the "dot" size when burning a DVD, is said to be:

...cost-effective and portable, as only conventional optical and laser elements are use, and allows for the development of optical data storage with long life and low energy consumption, which could be an ideal platform for a Big Data centre.

I'm not sure if that means it won't be turning up on a home PC, but still, it sounds a remarkable advance.

The Age tries comedy

(As inspired by this story in The Age this morning: Abbott, the thinking person's prime minister.)

No Bond gadgets needed?

Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender's secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed - Features - Films - The Independent

This sounds very improbable, but interesting:

We may know him for spoon bending antics and for his lengthy friendship with pop star Michael Jackson but showbiz psychic Uri Geller has seemingly had a lengthy second career as a secret agent for Mossad and the CIA, albeit one that was more Austin Powers than James Bond.

Geller was at the Sheffield Doc Fest this week for the premiere of Vikram Jayanti’s The Secret Life Of Uri Geller – Psychic Spy?, a new film that offers compelling evidence of his involvement in the shadowy world of espionage.

“Uri has a controversial reputation. A lot of people think he is a fraud, a lot of people think he is a trickster and makes things up but at the same time he has a huge following and a history of doing things that nobody can explain,” Jayanti says of his Zelig-like subject....

 The doc leaves a question mark in its title but provides so much background evidence that we are left in little doubt that even its most outlandish assertions are rooted in truth. Whether or not Geller had psychic powers, US security forces were certainly prepared to take a very hefty wager on him.

The documentary doesn't just rely on Geller's claims (in fact it says he is guarded in what he says):

Jayanti didn’t rely on Geller’s own cryptic testimony. Instead, he spoke to the high-level officials involved in recruiting and using him. These include scientists from The Stanford Research Institute as well as senior CIA operatives. Among the interviewees with first hand knowledge of Geller’s psychic spying activities are former CIA officer Kit Green, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man to walk on the moon), physicists Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff, and retired US army colonel John Alexander (of The Men Who Stared At Goats fame). A Brit, Nick Pope, once the British Government’s UFO boffin, also puts in an appearance. 

Hmmm.  Given that most of those named are prominent as believers in the paranormal, I wonder how reliable some their testimony might be.

Anyway, sounds well worth watching.

A comment made in absentia

I have a comment awaiting moderation for Catallaxy, where Julie Novak has attempted to answer the question "why are there no libertarian countries":

* Julie may well have read of this article elsewhere (it was getting a lot of publicity in the US), but I was the first to raise it at Catallaxy in an open thread some days ago. It attracted little comment, apart from the “just piss off” variety, and daddy dave accused it of being deliberately provocative to dare raise it at a libertarian themed site (even though, as many others now point out, the threads are dominated by conservatives.) This is an example of the completely out of whack treatment yours truly receives at the blog – it was an interesting argument well deserving of comment, but because I am the one to raise it, I am the one who deserves punishment.

* Isn’t it gob smackingly ironic for the complaints at this blog regarding the alleged crushing nanny statism which Australians are suffering under that Julie is citing recent research ranking the country high in the matters of economic and personal freedoms? I haven’t been able to download the paper at the link, but people who can should perhaps explain why it doesn’t support my contention that the blog is full of exaggerating panic merchants?

Oh, boo hoo

Of course, confirming that the Labor politicians who are still fighting the war for a Rudd return are not quite right in the head, Doug Cameron and Kim Carr have lined up to pretty directly condemn Gillard for seeing that Crossin loses her job.

But quite frankly, that's politics, isn't it?   People sometimes lose pre-selection for someone they think less deserving.

And after all - it's not as if Crossin hasn't had a good run.  In the Senate since 1998, and what sort of pension will she retire on?:

TERRITORIANS shouldn't feel too sorry for Trish Crossin following her dumping from the Senate.
She will get an annual tax-free pension of more than $100,000 a year and five free business class flights a year.

Oh, it's a right tragedy for her, that is.

Lift cables, skyscrapers, and space

Lifts and skyscrapers: The other mile-high club | The Economist

Here's another interesting piece up at The Economist website:

This week Kone, a Finnish liftmaker, announced that after a decade of development at its laboratory in Lohja, which sits above a 333-metre-deep mineshaft which the firm uses as a test bed, it has devised a system that should be able to raise an elevator a kilometre (3,300 feet) or more. This is twice as far as the things can go at present. Since the effectiveness of lifts is one of the main constraints on the height of buildings, Kone’s technology—which replaces the steel cables from which lift cars are currently suspended with ones made of carbon fibres—could result in buildings truly worthy of the name “skyscraper”.

The problem with steel cables (or “ropes” as they are known in the trade) is that they are heavy. Any given bit of rope has to pull up not only the car and the flexible travelling cables that take electricity and communications to it, but also all the rope beneath it. The job is made easier by counterweights. But even so in a lift 500 metres tall (the maximum effective height at the moment) steel ropes account for up to three-quarters of the moving mass of the machine. Shifting this mass takes energy, so taller lifts are more expensive to run. And adding to the mass, by making the ropes longer, would soon come uncomfortably close to the point where the steel would snap under the load. Kone says it is able to reduce the weight of lift ropes by around 90% with its carbon-fibre replacement, dubbed UltraRope.

The article does note at the end that the development suggests that space elevators may be do-able:

Nor need carbon-fibre lift-cables be confined to buildings. They could eventually make an idea from science fiction a reality too. Space lifts, dreamed up in the late 1950s, are a way of getting into orbit without using a rocket. Building one would mean lowering a cable from a satellite in a geosynchronous orbit above the Earth’s equator while deploying a counterbalancing cable out into space. The cable from Earth to the satellite would not be a classic lift rope because it would not, itself, move. But it would perform a similar function of support as robotic cars crawled up and down it, ferrying people and equipment to and from the satellite—whence they could depart into the cosmos.

I'm guessing that the strength of this new cable has some way to go yet.

But as it happens, I was idly wondering recently about whatever happened to the idea of a "skyhook" system for helping get things into low earth orbit.  

I always thought the idea of space plane catching a ride up at the end of skyhook sounded like a good idea, and I wonder whether the strength of the Kone cable is enough for the job.   (Although a skyhook presumably needs to be rigid, not flexible like a lift cable.  I wonder if that is a problem?)

It does sound kinda stupid

Google's Project Loon to float the internet on balloons - tech - 18 June 2013 - New Scientist

I hadn't previously bothered reading the details of the Google trial of internet via balloon,  but now that I have, it's hard to imagine it working:

 Google will rely on weather prediction to keep its balloons in the right place, moving them up and down to take advantage of different air currents. "Project Loon uses software algorithms to determine where its balloons need to go, then moves each one into a layer of wind blowing in the right direction," Google announced. "By moving with the wind, the balloons can be arranged to form one large communications network."

An IT consultant also says it's a bit silly to think that access to the net will be of instant value to the poorest people of the world:

"It is a total myth to imagine a farmer in Mali using Google to find solutions for a disease his tomatoes have. Barriers are just huge: illiteracy, language, ICT training," Boyera says. The existing web is not that useful to the underprivileged populations of developing countries, and no amount of new connectivity options can fix that, he says.

Good point.

Day 10 of the prophecy that won't self fulfill despite everyone's best effort

Gee, isn't everyone getting sick of the media story that the Gillard leadership crisis is coming to a head, um, any day now.  The current countdown really got a kick along by Barrie Cassidy on Insiders the Sunday before last, and given that he is said to be close to the PM's partner Tim (well, they have often been seen at the footy together, I think the story goes,) I thought it might even have been some sort of authorised leak from the Lodge about Gillard re-considering her position.  This private theory of mine obviously had nothing to it, though.

Of course, the media is not entirely to blame:  but it is for continually repeating the musings of the line up of Labor politicians who want to have a cry on their shoulder about how Kevin is their only hope.

We also have left leaning academics to blame - John Quiggin, who has agitated for a Rudd return for a long time, and even the normally sensible Ken Parish is now advocating a completely cynical switch based on the theory that Rudd wouldn't win the House of Reps anyway, but would keep the Senate out of Coalition control, even though he really is a "treacherous turd" (Ken's own words) . 

I haven't seen the evening news on TV lately, but I've caught a bit of Question Time during the day, and Gillard has performed well.   She does not look like a leader who deserves to lose her position at all.

If only people of the Left would stop talking about the need for her to go, so that everything that happens in Federal politics is not being seen purely through that prism.   (Of course, this advice should have been followed for the last 2 years, as well.)

Things I don't understand about movies

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas Have a Strange Vision of the Future - DailyFinance

As this article notes, it was very odd hearing the creators of the Hollywood blockbuster mentality complaining about how it has sucked dry financing for other films.   (Spielberg had to look hard for financing for Lincoln, apparently, even though I would have thought it was one he could have paid for himself.  Lucas self financed his last film, which was a critical and commercial flop that seems to have not even been released internationally.  [Or if it has, I hadn't noticed.])

Anyhow, Hollywood financing and accounting has always been an enigma and famously shonky, and although I mentioned this before fairly recently, I still need someone to explain the following about the present situation:

1.  we used to hear that a huge cost of putting out a film was the print costs and distribution.   The US now has a large number of digital cinemas, so what has happened to all those costs savings?

2.  similarly, digital video cameras should surely represent a huge saving in film stock and processing.   Where did the savings go?

3.  digital video and cheap computer graphics processing should presumably also have dramatically cut the cost of special effects, and there was even that video going around the internet a couple of years ago showing how TV shows can basically use digital sets which presumably is much cheaper than going to a location. Where did the savings go?

On a separate note, on Friday night I watched the SBS sex movie that traditionally follows their Nazi documentary.   (Who started this long standing tradition at the station, I wonder.) 

This movie ("Lower City") was from Brazil, and the synopsis is here:

When prostitute Karinna accepts a ride to Bahia on Deco and Naldinho's cargo boat, sexual services are part of the arrangement.

Both men quickly become enamoured with her and seek the means to take her away from her life as a prostitute and pole dancer.

Set in the beautiful Bahia de San Salvador in Northern Brazil. 

It fitted the European (and Australian) School of Pointless Realism perfectly:   follow the events in the life of a few characters who are small time criminals and on a "life's losers" trajectory.   End the film by having them get into a fight, but with no resolution of the situation that has developed in the film whatsoever.  (The two guys both fell in love with her; the prostitute is pregnant with someone's baby, but it could be anyone's.  The guys beat each other up, she washes their blood in her room, and has a cry.  End credits.)  

I thought to myself:  I have been complaining about this style of narrative in art house film (let's set up a situation for the characters:  let's not attempt any resolution of any kind at all!) for decades.   I actually find it so cliche now that it is funny.      

The oceans rise up

Coastal cities and climate change: You’re going to get wet | The Economist

Here's a good, detailed article on the very serious issue of how expensive and difficult it will be for the US to deal with rising sea levels.

Cartoonist idea

Has some cartoonist in Australia today done something combining the Gillard/Rudd leadership issue and the Nigella Lawson "just a playful tiff" story?   Seems sort of obvious...

And speaking of cartoonists, First Dog on the Moon's one from last week was very good.  (Particularly the talk back callers.)

Ben's right

Many men find gender debates too threatening to handle | Ben Eltham | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Whether you think Gillard has been a good prime minister or a poor one, the highly sexualised attacks against her person are on the public record for all to see. The avalanche of personal slurs against the prime minister has snowballed so far, overseas media outlets are starting to take note of it.

Except, unfortunately, many can't see it. For many Australians, including many men, the idea that Gillard is on the receiving end of a torrent of sexual abuse is just too hard to cope with. As a fellow on Twitter remarked to me yesterday about the Sattler interview, the interview was “hardly sexist”. No, he went on, “she is an incompetent leader who back-stabbed the PM of the country. That is why she is hated.” Incompetence and backstabbing – there's a couple of gender stereotypes we see time and again in the way the prime minister is discussed.

It's not just the froth and bubble of social media. Robust opinion poll data shows the trend. Gillard is particularly unpopular with men, and the trend shows up in different polls by different pollsters.

In the wake of Gillard's speech last about men in blue ties and abortion, the trend has worsened. Nielsen's John Stirton tells us that “Labor's primary vote was down 7 points among men.” The Australian Financial Review's front page screamed this morning, “Men in revolt against Gillard”.

There's no doubt that abortion is a divisive issue. But few seem to have bothered to read the full speech, which is actually quite moderate. Gillard's decision to raise abortion and gender issues is hardly beyond the pale. How can it be? These are vital social issues of the utmost ethical significance.

In any case, the Gillard hatred is not really about abortion. It's about power.

The truth is that many men find gender discussions uncomfortable. They find them uncomfortable because they threaten male power. The most anti-Gillard segment of the community is older white males – precisely the most privileged demographic in Australian society. For men like Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and Howard Sattler, it really does appear as though a female prime minister threatens their sense of identity. Perhaps that's why Jones seems incapable of stopping himself referring to the prime minister as “this woman.” Andrew Bolt prefers a more subtle power dynamic: he likes to call Gillard a “professional victim”.

Mysterious and convenient timing, and a bunch of questions about Smith's crusade

Hedley Thomas re-appears today in The Australian to tell us that Victorian Police have taken files (under a search warrant) from Julia Gillard's old law firm.

Yet if you read the report carefully, one will see that there is no mention of when they did this.  Just that "sources told The Australian yesterday."

Given that Gillard is under intense leadership, doesn't this leak just appear a bit convenient?

I personally suspect that there is something deeply fishy and potentially scandalous about the whole matter of the Victorian police investigation into the Gillard "did she or did she not properly witness a Power of Attorney" question.

The point is - no one seems to be claiming that anyone lost any money out of this, and the person whose evidence is crucial (Ralph Blewitt) is both widely considered to be a crook, and does not deny signing the Power of Attorney.

A lawyer who improperly witnessed a document may certainly be guilty of unprofessional conduct, but it is a matter normally dealt with by the local Law Society, as this blog post by a barrister with lots of examples illustrates.  He points out that solicitors don't even usually lose the right to practice over such a matter.

Without knowing the exact details of what Blewitt has alleged, it is difficult to know completely what the Police are running with.   But it has always looked very strange to me that the Victorian Police have such an intense interest in a matter which is nearly 20 years old, and in which no one alleges any money was lost.  Furthermore, it has to be remembered that Michael Smith, a man well motivated to have a nutty personal obsession with politically hurting the PM, but who wasn't even involved in the matter, is apparently the one who has made the complaint that the police are investigating.   How does that work? 

Will it work like this:  Police conduct investigation for a year or more, hand it over to public prosecutor lawyers who decide there is insufficient evidence to charge anything, and it really is more a matter of professional misconduct?   Meanwhile, political damage has been maximised?   Wouldn't that be considered a somewhat scandalous outcome?

Or is it that Blewitt has made some other allegation of Gillard's knowledge of the source of funds to buy the house in Melbourne?  But as his partner in dodgy business Wilson is completely supporting Gillard, how would you ever hope that there is a credible case to be worth running?   

If it is only relating to the power of attorney, why has there been no lawyer or reporter out there asking "why are the police so interested in an old matter which would normally be one relating to professional conduct only"?  Or has there been, but I have missed it?

I have been meaning to make this point for many months, but today's report was the one to finally prompt me to do it.

The coming seafood buffet crisis?

It's been ages since I have had a post about ocean acidification.

Three recent stories on the topic caught my eye, however, and two of them are potentially bad news for those who like to partake of a seafood buffet:

1.   squid, including the type we routinely eat, seem to be adversely affected by increasing acidification (although the experiment in question did look at their growth at pH levels which won't be seen in the ocean for a hundred years or so);

2.  the mechanism via which oysters suffer under low pH appears to be better understood:

They discovered that the tiny larvae undergo a dramatic growth spurt during their first 48 hours of life, forming new shell at a rate 10 times higher than they do when they are five days old.

This spurt is fuelled by nutrients packed into each larva's egg. As well as powering shell construction, the nutrients also fuel the development of feeding organs – vital for getting energy once the food source from the egg has been used up. But such high growth rates are difficult to sustain when seawater pH falls. That's because the carbonate ions normally used to build calcium carbonate shells instead react with the more acidic water, reducing the amount available for shell material.

3.  To muddy the ocean acidification story further (almost a pun there), another recent study indicates the confusing situation regarding what is already doing well, and what's doing not so well, in the oceans, and the uncertainty as to what is causing the changes:

The study, published in PLoS One found that different species react in different ways to changes in their environment. As carbon dioxide emissions dissolve in seawater they lower the pH of the oceans making them more acidic and more corrosive to shells.

Foraminifera and coccoliths, which are small shelled plankton and algae, appear to be surviving remarkably well in the more acidic conditions. But numbers of pteropods and bivalves – such as mussels, clams and oysters – are falling.

'Ecologically, some species are soaring, whilst others are crashing out of the system,' says Professor Jason Hall-Spencer, of Plymouth University, who co-authored the paper.

The scientists are unsure whether this drop in certain species is because of changing pH levels, or whether it is due to a combination of stress factors like warming, overfishing and eutrophication -which results from a build up of excess nutrients in water.

Vacuum assisted aim

The video itself is a few years old, but it just appeared at Boing Boing, and it's genuinely interesting to see how well a vacuum system for space urination seems to work:

How to send a secret message without sending it

There's a really good article up at Vanity Fair, by a guy who seems to know what he's talking about, trying to correct the many misperceptions about the US PRISM program aspect of the current NSA "scandal". 

He makes a point (after a good technical explanation as to how the NSA works in the email spying business) which I have always thought pretty obvious:

Sure, people could make the argument that this could be the slippery slope to some sort of effort by the government to monitor your porn subscriptions, but . . . really? The N.S.A. is downloading petabytes of data every day with so many anonymizers and protections in place, it is incomprehensible to imagine (and illegal and technologically problematic) that someone would just somehow start surfing through private records. To me, the slippery-slope argument makes as much sense as the N.R.A.’s position that, if we use background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the United States is on the way to the seizure of weapons. And they make the same silly argument—they think that the government invades their privacy by running those checks.

I was also interested to read of this pretty clever way of passing information without sending an email:

Sometime after 9/11, al-Qaeda members figured out that a great way to transmit information over the Internet was by not transmitting it at all. Instead, a terrorist would open an account with a free service like Hotmail or Google, write an e-mail, and rather than sending it or even writing in the address of a recipient, would store it in a “draft” folder. Then, through other means such as a satellite phone or another e-mail account, a coded message would be sent to the planned recipient telling him the account name and the password. The recipient would know to open the account, check the draft file, and then delete the account. Once the N.S.A. knew through other means of the existence of the message, it would gain access to the temporary account through a court-issued subpoena to the company, read the secret message, and watch what happened. By 2010, though, the terrorists figured out this wasn’t working anymore and changed tactics.

The good and the bad

Pope Pius XII, Hitler’s pawn? | TLS

This reads as a pretty even handed review of 2 new biographies of Eugenio Pacelli, who was Pope Pius XII (the World War 2 Pope).  It concentrates more on what he did in the lead up to the war, rather than during it.    For example:

In early 1933, Hitler, now Chancellor, but not yet dictator, surprised Pacelli by putting out feelers for a Reichskonkordat. Hitler was offering guarantees assuring Catholic rights to religious practice in exchange for the Church’s withdrawal from every kind of social and political action, assembly and association – including newspapers, scouting groups and women’s associations. As a sweetener, Hitler offered extra educational funding for Catholic schools – for buildings, places and teachers. But the condition laid down by Hitler was that the Centre Party should vote for the infamous “Enabling Bill”, awarding him dictatorial powers, followed by the Party’s voluntary disestablishment. Ventresca concludes that the Reichskonkordat left German Catholics with no “meaningful electoral opposition to the Nazis”, while the “benefits and vaunted diplomatic entente [of the Reichskonkordat] with the German state were neither clear nor certain”. 

Recent historiography of the behaviour of the professions, Churches and judiciary from 1933 onwards in Germany, suggests that Pacelli’s dealings with Hitler had devastating consequences. The role of the judges, scientists, academics, who individually and collectively did deals with, and took benefits from, Hitler, while remaining aloof from his vicious ideology, has been characterized as that of the Mitläufer: the fellow traveller. It could be argued that the Mitläufer did more damage than card-carrying Nazi members of the churches and professions. There were indeed several Nazi Catholic prelates, known as the “Brown Bishops”, who were figures of contempt among the faithful. But the consequence of “fellow-travelling” by figures of respect and distinction, and the institutions they represented, was to demoralize potential opposition, scandalize the young, and dignify Hitler at home and abroad. Pacelli was the Führer’s ideal prelate, and future Pope, because his diplomatic accommodations suited, albeit unintentionally, the dictator’s long-term purposes.

Writing in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Pacelli declared the Reichskonkordat a triumph for the Code of Canon Law. The subtext was that Hitler had accepted the imposition of the new Code on German Catholics, hence the shift of governing authority from the local Church to the Vatican. For Hitler, speaking in cabinet, the treaty meant the “recognition of the nationalist German state” by the Vatican, as well as withdrawal of the Church from political organizations, and the disbanding of the Centre Party. Finally, and ominously, Hitler declared that the treaty created a “sense of confidence” that would be “especially significant in the urgent struggle against international Jewry”. Pacelli was not anti-Semitic in the Nazi sense; yet he had accepted on behalf of Pius XI educational benefits from a regime that was simultaneously depriving Jews of corresponding rights and resources. The circumstance signalled an acquiescence in Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies at the origins of the persecution of Jews in Germany.

I didn't realise that Pope Paul VI had "launched the cause for his beatification".   There does seem to be a bit of an unseemly haste, if you ask me, for recent Popes to want to make their predecessors saints.   But I see from Wikipedia that the recently retired Benedict was originally reluctant:

Benedict XVI had advocated waiting until the archives from Pius XII's papacy were opened to researchers in 2014.^[1][2] A selection, the ADSS, edited by a multinational team of Jesuits, was published between 1965 and 1981. Benedict XVI changed his mind and declared Pius XII Venerable on December 19, 2009, based on the recommendation of the committee.^[1] Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI's predecessor, was declared Venerable on the same day.

I expect waiting for the full archives to be read would be worthwhile.   

Grogonomics recommended

I've been forgetting to note how much I enjoy Greg Jericho writing on economics at The Guardian.

I particularly liked his post this week taking apart the Rupert Murdoch twitter summary about Australia's current economic position.   Rupert's view, by strange coincidence [/sarc] happens to be the ABCIG* collective view as well.

It also appears to be based on lack of knowledge of some actual figures, but is repeated to Murdoch in the circles he moves in so often, he clearly has started to believe it.

Speaking of the Catallaxy economists, as Jericho notes in his most recent post, the stagflation fear mongering which turned up on the ABC (which, by wide yet nonsensical acclaim at Catallaxy, needs to be sold immediately under a Coalition government because, I guess, not enough wrong predictions by their favoured economists have been appearing) and at Andrew Bolt's show (the collective in operation) is at its two year anniversary of non fulfilment.  Congratulations.

*  the Australian, Andrew Bolt, Catallaxy, IPA and Gina Rinehart collective.   It used to be just the ABC collective, but Gina and the IPA well and truly deserves their positions as well.  In fact, its become so bad, Andrew Bolt would only have about 1/3 of the content he currently runs on his blog if it were not for Catallaxy.

Fascists do the strangest things

BBC News - A gay island community created by Italy's Fascists

A somewhat interesting story here of an island exile which Mussolini set up in the 1930's for homosexual men.

The way fascist Italy dealt with them was a step up from Germany, I suppose, but still:  

No discriminatory laws were passed. But a climate was created in which open manifestations of homosexuality could be vigorously suppressed.

And one particular police prefect in the Sicilian city of Catania took full advantage of the official mood.

"We notice that many public dances, beaches and places in the mountains receive many of these sick men, and that youngsters from all social classes look for their company," he wrote. 

He said he was determined to halt this "spreading of degeneration" in his city "or at least contain such a sexual aberration that offends morality and that is disastrous to public health and the improvement of the race".

He went on: "This evil needs to be attacked and burned at its core."

So in 1938 around 45 men believed to be homosexuals in Catania were rounded up and consigned to internal exile.

They were locked up in dormitories at 8pm (under police supervision, it says), and had no electricity or running water, but apart from that, it appears the days were pretty relaxed:

"In those days if you were a femminella [a slang Italian word for a gay man] you couldn't even leave your home, or make yourself noticed - the police would arrest you," he said of his home town near Naples.

"On the island, on the other hand, we would celebrate our Saint's days or the arrival of someone new... We did theatre, and we could dress as women there and no-one would say anything."
And he said that of course, there was romance, and even fights over lovers.

Then the war broke out, and they had to go back home to "a kind of house arrest", and some were disappointed to leave.It does sound like most sent to the island were effeminate, although there is reference to a seminarian who somehow was exiled there.

The article ends on a point I hadn't realised about the state of gay politics in Italy today:

There is still no real social stigma attached to homophobia in Italy, Scalfarotto says, and the state doesn't extend legal rights of any kind to gay or lesbian couples.

The influence of the Church, I assume?   One thing I have never understood, though, is why the Spanish Latin countries seem to have adapted to gay relationships very quickly, given that the macho culture reputation and Catholic influence.   Why have they changed very quickly, yet Italy is conservative on the matter?  I also don't really understand the strength of the anti gay marriage sentiment in France:  a country I had assumed had little Catholic influence.  I know there are other elements in the protests there, but still... 

Is this why dogs have sometimes detected it?

Scent of melanoma: New research may lead to early non-invasive detection and diagnosis

It's only tests in the lab so far, but still:

The researchers used an absorbent device to collect chemical compounds from air in closed containers containing the various types of cells. Then, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques were used to analyze the compounds and identified different profiles of VOCs emitting from melanoma cells relative to normal cells.

Both the types and concentrations of chemicals were affected. Melanoma cells produced certain compounds not detected in VOCs from normal melanocytes and also more or less of other chemicals. Further, the different types of melanoma cells could be distinguished from one another.

Noting that translation of these results into the clinical diagnostic realm would require a reliable and portable sensor device, the researchers went on to examine VOCs from normal melanocytes and melanoma cells using a previously described nano-sensor.

Constructed of nano-sized carbon tubes coated with strands of DNA, the tiny sensors can be bioengineered to recognize a wide variety of targets, including specific odor molecules. The nano-sensor was able to distinguish differences in VOCs from normal and several different types of melanoma cells.

Another 4 billion?

World population could be nearly 11 billion by 2100, research shows

African fertility is not slowing at the expected rate, and hence:

The current African population is about 1.1 billion and it is now expected to reach 4.2 billion, nearly a fourfold increase, by 2100.

That's pretty remarkable.  

The boss divorces

That's interesting.  Rupert Murdoch is getting divorced from his Chinese wife.

I've been puzzled by his swings on issues - he was an early enthusiast on climate change, and I suspected her influence.   (She is said to have introduced him to a younger crowd.)    Of course, he now rarely mentions it and has no regrets about running media outlets which are an absolute disgrace in their coverage against climate change being real, and I wonder how this sits with her.   His politics lately has been swinging harder Right, it seems to me.  

I therefore wonder if he will soon be worse in that regard. 

One other thing:  I find it truly remarkable that Britain still has "page 3 girls" running his Sun newspaper.  Earlier this year, it was noted that maybe Rupert was considering stopping it.

Obviously, his wife either had no interest in the topic, or had not been able to influence him on it for a decade or so before this year.

On the menu today...

Michelle Grattan's summary of the whole issue of Julia Gillard and women is very good.

I have a few comments:

*  the two Ruddite MP's who were happy to go on TV and say they didn't think it was a good idea for Gillard to make the comments she did in her speech to the women's group are complete idiots who obviously have no concern at all for the devastation that a disunited party will cause at an election.   I doubt that Rudd was behind this - his performance on TV yesterday attacking the Liberals on "menu-gate" was good:  he clearly has some stupid supporters, however. 

*  when a politician's first response to an embarrassing document is "I don't recall seeing it", it is usually code for "I saw it but with any luck I'll get away with this if I use this phrase."    It would appear both Brough and Hockey used the formula.   (Hockey definitely did; Brough seemingly has been kept away from the cameras for fear he will stuff up his own defence.)    Given that it appears from the first reports about this late yesterday morning that Brough knew all about how it was (allegedly) created but not distributed, the late arrival of the exculpatory email from the restaurant owner was suspicious too.    Sorry, but given Brough being shown up as a liar before, I think it highly likely he will soon be shown to be a liar again.    If so, this will do more harm than the menu itself.

*  scepticism of the restaurant owner's explanation was evident on breakfast TV this morning, with a reporter outside the restaurant (will this be good or bad for their business, I wonder?)  saying that staff had hinted the menu had been on the tables.   This is all silly business, but it will be fun to see what develops today.

*  there is too much concentration on the messaging rather than the message as far as Gillard is concerned.  Labor supporters like Jane Caro and Eva Cox should just shut up if they want to help.

*  Joe Hockey seems a bit of an unexpected wuss for complaining about Gillard apparently referring to him as a fat man.  First of all, no one remembers that, and secondly, he had gastric by-pass surgery to lose weight, for goodness sake.   If Gillard helped encourage him to a healthy weight, stop whining about it.

A good thing for the government to question

Who really pays for designer vaginas?

Increasing numbers of Australian women are asking their doctors for a designer vagina. So many, in fact, that the government is reviewing whether such surgery should be publicly-funded via Medicare.

Over the last ten years, claims through the medical benefit scheme (MBS) for labioplasty have increased from 200 to over 1,500 per year. The resulting cost, rising from $40,000 to $740,000 annually, has led to a government review questioning the procedure.

As the article says,  there is virtually no doubt at all that the demand for this surgery is driven by a combination of the ubiquity of pornography due to the internet, and the fashion for pubic hair removal.   Perhaps a government advertising campaign against both is called for?  (Well, it would be interesting to sit in on the ad agencies workshopping such a campaign, at least.)  

Quite the nutter

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vaccine conspiracy theory: Scientists and journalists are covering up autism risk. - Slate Magazine

Wow.  Robert F Kennedy comes out sounding quite the conspiracy nutter in this Slate article detailing his anti-vaccination theories.  

Saletan on the NSA kerfuffle

The NSA’s phone-call database: A defense of mass surveillance. - Slate Magazine

I find it hard getting excited about this issue - I thought all sensible people just assumed that no electronic communication was free from secret US (and probably other countries) access.   

But William Saletan has a column explaining some of the detail of the current story that is exciting both the Left and Right in the US, for very different reasons. 

M'eh.   Still seems no big deal to me.

Free advice to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard

Dear Kevin & Julia,

If you really, really want to help Labor, and (for Kevin) preserve the possibility of returning to the leadership in the future, here's what you could do:

1.  Kevin:  start referring to the Prime Minister as "Julia", on TV, not all the time, but at least once or twice between your insistence on referring to her as "the Prime Minister" (as if her actual name remains poison to you.)

2.  Kevin and Julia:  stage a very public reconciliation meeting for the cameras (perhaps with a couple of other Rudd "enemies" in the background) at which Kevin refers to "Julia" at the key point where he explains that you are reconciled, and Kevin makes it clear that he will co-operate in all respects with campaigning and media appearances so as to not give the impression that he is still competing for the leadership.

3.  Julia:  at the reconciliation meeting, explain that Kevin will return to Cabinet  in the event of the return of the Labor government.  Use the reasoning that it's obviously too late to fit him back in now, and returned Prime Ministers typically do re-shuffle things a bit.  Talk him up as obviously a person who the public wants to see in a more prominent role in government, and you are willing to accommodate this.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that such an obviously useful tactic could be achieved by Labor?

Colebatch on the dollar, again

Blame it on the dollar, but can we rein it in?

My favourite economics commentator emphasises in this column how much the high Australian dollar alone has been responsible for many business's high operating costs:

Between 2010 and 2013, the IMF estimates, we and our producers have been paying a staggering 55per cent more for goods and services than our US counterparts.

Our costs against the US and the world have doubled in a decade. Not all of that is due to the dollar. Wages and prices have kept rising at vaguely normal pace here, while barely growing at all in Europe, Japan and the US. But the dollar's rise is the main reason.

Since 2010 its average value has been almost 50 per cent higher than it was in the years from 1985 to 2005. Whether you are Ford, BHP, the University of Melbourne or a Wimmera wheat grower, that is a crushing competitive burden.

Relief has come in recent weeks. As the US recovery gains strength and our economy weakens, the dollar has fallen 10 per cent since April 12, when it stood at a 28-year high on the Reserve's index.

But it also sank below parity for some weeks in 2010, 2011 and 2012, only to return again. And it needs to fall much more before many Australian producers will feel confident to invest and expand.

Back to that Lee Smolin book...

Further to my recent post regarding physicist Lee Smolin's new book, I see that someone at Backreaction has put up a link to a copy of its review in Nature.   It makes the argument in the book a little bit clearer.

Something to come back to

At about 70 pages, I don't have time to read this essay I found at arXiv on physics, free will and Turing, but I will come back to it.

Reviewing Darwin and Johnson

Essay Book Reviews - Irish Book Reviews - Dublin Review of Books

I mentioned late last year that there is a short book out by Paul Johnson about Charles Darwin.

This lengthy review is of the kind that seems to make it unnecessary to read the book.  I like this kind of review...

Hope for my brain

Nuclear bomb tests reveal brain regeneration in humans - health - 07 June 2013 - New Scientist

Nuclear bomb tests carried out during the cold war have had an unexpected benefit.

A radioactive carbon isotope expelled by the blasts has been used to date the age of adult human brain cells, providing the first definitive evidence that we generate new brain cells throughout our lives. The study also provides the first model of the dynamics of the process, showing that the regeneration of neurons does not drop off with age as sharply as expected.

Very clever work.

Spices considered, and nutmeg revisited

This seems to be the second series on SBS I've seen in the last couple of years devoted to spices, but I have been enjoying Spice Trip.  Last night they were on Grenada, a country you rarely see on travel shows, looking at nutmeg and mace.

Curiously, the male co-host, a London chef with a name (Stevie!), voice and manner which I thought indicated he was gay, last night noted that he has one child and another on the way.  (He has a wife and two sons, I see.  Maybe the English really are the easiest nationality to mistake as gay.)    This came up in the context of the alleged aphrodisiac qualities of nutmeg - people from Grenada talk a lot, it seems, about how a meal full of nutmeg will assuredly make you "horny". 

My decreasing number of long term readers will recall my interest in nutmeg because of Uncle Scrooge having an addiction to nutmeg tea, which turned out to be kind of unfortunate because you can indeed get high (although not pleasantly so, apparently) from consuming too much of the spice.    And yes, this did get mentioned on the show last night, with a warning that you should consume no more than 5 g a day, and (if I recall correctly) more than 15 g might kill you (!).   I must now weigh a nutmeg nut to check its weight.

Anyhow, I see the whole episode is on DailyMotion, if you are interested:


E4 Spice Trip - Nutmeg - Grenada by zodiacza

What was I saying about Christopher Pyne earlier this week?

Christopher Pyne's strained relationship with the truth* continues to be operating at crisis level, and I don't think they're ever going to be reconciled again:  

Lateline - 06/06/2013: Election countdown: CHRISTOPHER PYNE, MANAGER OF OPP. BUSINESS: I understand from sources within the Labor Party that Julia Gillard demanded that she'd also be able to appear.

TOM IGGULDEN: That was denied by both the Prime Minister's office and the ABC.

LEIGH SALES, 7.30 PRESENTER: For the record, I can confirm that the Prime Minister did none of those things.

TOM IGGULDEN: Mr Pyne claimed the interview had already been recorded.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And in her interview, I'm told from my Labor sources that she has demanded that Mr Rudd rule out a challenge to her leadership.

TOM IGGULDEN: In fact, that question was put by Leigh Sales.

* heard at their counselling session:  "It's like he doesn't know me anymore.  I ring, and the next day he claims he can't remember".

Worth a try

Google rolls its own keyboard app for Android 4.0 and up

I have been a bit dissatisfied with Android keyboards on my 10 inch tablet, and find the Apple one better when I go back to use it again, but I haven't really bothered to work out what exactly it is that makes me prefer the latter.

Anyway, a Google keyboard for Android will definitely be worth a try.   Mind you, it will probably form part of the Google grand plan to gather enough information about every user on the planet so as to be able to develop computer based analogues of them in cyberspace.  Maybe this is how resurrection will occur in the distant future, and it's Google in particular which will evolve into God.

I'm sure it's something the process theologians should be giving thought to....

Stephen's problem

Stephen Fry reveals details of recent attempted suicide | Culture | The Guardian

Apparently, he had another suicide attempt last year, despite being on medication for bipolar and being a spokesperson of sorts for mental health.

Like most people, I suppose, I find Fry quite likeable, but suspect his reputation for high intelligence and all round brilliance is probably rather over-rated .   I just wish he would slow down.  He seems the perfect candidate for something like intense meditation for its calming effect.

The remarkable ageing Japan

Japan's oldest community - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I saw this story on Lateline last night and thought it was a poignant illustration of what is happening in the Japanese countryside.

The most remarkable figures from the story are these:

There are more than 7.5 million empty houses and apartments in Japan. That's about 10 per cent of all residences in the country. And here, in this district of Nanmoku, more than two-thirds of homes have been abandoned....

While there are 10 babies in this village, there are also 10 people over the age of 100. 106-year-old Masu Koido is the oldest of the lot.

I didn't quite get why at least one house of a deceased resident, who the neighbours come over to open up every now and then, still seemed to be full of contents and family memorabilia.

If I had enough money, a holiday home in some nice corner of the Japanese countryside would be very pleasant.  A spare one in France is needed too.

Would be interesting if I could read it

Quantum physics: The quantum atom 

This special issue of Nature explores the origin and legacy of Bohr's quantum atom, a model that has resonated ever since. In 1911, Bohr began a postdoctoral year in England that planted the seeds of his thinking. In a Comment on page 27, historian John Heilbron relates how letters from Bohr to his brother Harald and to his fiancée, Margrethe Nørlund, published this year, chart the dauntless physicist's work with J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford, and his study of the papers of John William Nicholson, which presaged his breakthrough.

All stuck behind the ridiculously expensive Nature paywall, unfortunately.   Seriously, who is going to pay £12 for access to an article like that?  

Safety advice

Rescuing drowning children: How to know when someone is in trouble in the water. - Slate Magazine

This is good to know.  It explains how drowning doesn't look like what most people expect.

It certainly seems remarkable how silent it is, given the number of toddlers who drown in backyard pools each year with their parents hearing nothing.  

Looking on the bright side (except for Julia)

The Aussie dollar is doing its bit 

Stephen Koukoulas does his bit to counter the "it's a looming catastrophe" meme that seems to be dominating commentary on the Australian economy at the moment.

The depreciation of the Australian dollar is just the tonic the Australian economy needs.
It will give a welcome income and competitive lift to exporters and will see local firms and industries that are competing with importers get a boost to their activity as the price of imports increase.

For the exporters that maintained solid activity when the dollar was trading around $US1.05, the recent move below $US0.97 will translate directly to higher profits, additional output and jobs. So too for local firms competing with imports.

This sets the scene for a lift in aggregate economic conditions into 2014 and a rebalancing of economic activity a little away from mining and related sectors towards domestic activity.

It is an outlook where the unbroken run of annual GDP growth will almost certainly extend to a 22nd, 23rd and 24th year. This is a truly fantastic performance in the Australian economy.

It is also likely to extend the time in which the unemployment rate has remained below 6 per cent into an 11th, 12th and 13th year.

And aside from the temporary jump in inflation in 2008 which was inspired by the reckless Howard government spending spree, inflation has been within the target range for two decades.

These stunning economic fundamentals have occurred with the Australian dollar being as high as $US1.10 and as low as $US0.4775. Official interest rates have been as high as 7.5 per cent and as low as 2.75 per cent. The budget has registered a deficit as high as 4.3 per cent of GDP and a surplus as large as 2.0 per cent of GDP.

All of which shows that the floating of the Australian dollar, successful inflation targeting from the RBA and a pragmatic approach to fiscal policy have yielded long run economic benefits.

Of course, the terrible thing for Labor is that some commentators believe the Aussie dollar will settle over the next 6 months at about .90US, which will clearly be very advantageous for the economy, and will have nothing to do with a Coalition win in September, but the Coalition will reap the political benefit of it. 

Next for State of Origin?

In what (for me) is an unusual concession to traditional Australian masculinity, I say again that Rugby League as played at its peak in a State of Origin match constitutes the most impressive and watchable sporting event in Australia.

I see in tonight's game that some cameras seem to be being zipped around mounted on Segways.

The next level of camera innovation might be this, one suspects (at least if the 60 seconds it takes for the computer to stitch the image together can be reduced):

 

Good old NHK.

The Catholic Multiverse

The Large Hadron Collider, the Multiverse, and Me (and my friends) - First Thoughts

You don't often see particle physics discussed at the religious blog First Things, but I see that Stephen Barr (a physicist who is a Catholic and writes about religion and science) is doing a bit of bragging that he and some colleagues had suggested quite a while ago (1997) that a multiverse could perhaps account for the odd weight of the Higgs particle.

Barr links to an article that recently appeared at Scientific American about this, which details the argument that comes down to this:

The spectacular discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012 confirmed a nearly 50-year-old theory of how elementary particles acquire mass, which enables them to form big structures such as galaxies and humans. “The fact that it was seen more or less where we expected to find it is a triumph for experiment, it’s a triumph for theory, and it’s an indication that physics works,” Arkani-Hamed told the crowd.

However, in order for the Higgs boson to make sense with the mass (or equivalent energy) it was determined to have, the LHC needed to find a swarm of other particles, too. None turned up.

With the discovery of only one particle, the LHC experiments deepened a profound problem in physics that had been brewing for decades. Modern equations seem to capture reality with breathtaking accuracy, correctly predicting the values of many constants of nature and the existence of particles like the Higgs. Yet a few constants — including the mass of the Higgs boson — are exponentially different from what these trusted laws indicate they should be, in ways that would rule out any chance of life, unless the universe is shaped by inexplicable fine-tunings and cancellations.

Peter Woit, at Not Even Wrong, who hates the multiverse being invoked as a solution, has also seen the article and is dismissive of it.

I am curious as to how theology would really cope with a multiverse if it was shown to definitely exist. 

Just last night, I was skimming through The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, the book by Margaret Wertheim that got a lot of attention when it came out in 1999.  (Interestingly, some of it about how the internet could develop - talking about the potential for cyberworlds like Second Life, for example - already reads as very dated.   Spending time as an avatar turned out not to be all that it was cracked up to be.)

Anyhow, the key theme of the book is that cyberspace essentially now serves as the "space" in which heaven and immortality can reside.  She starts off talking about the medieval (or earlier) understanding of the universe as involving a finite, onion like arrangement of spheres, with the heavenly world existing beyond the outer shell.  (I think it is sometimes said that stars were taken to be pinpricks in the outer shell, letting in the eternal light of heaven.)

Well, with a multiverse, you may have an entirely new way to locate something that could pass for heaven.  Or so it seems to me.  The only problem being that there is no obvious way to access it.  Unless you can information leakage from one universe to the next, I suppose.

Don Page is the only other religious scientist I can recall who talks about such things.  I referred to his papers on the multiverse back in 2008.   Perhaps I should re-read him, but I still think there is more room for interesting speculation on the topic.

Update:  Well, that's a co-incidence.  Margaret Wertheim has an interesting article just published in which she covers the big questions of physics, and explains the likes Lee Smolin's book which I just mentioned a couple of posts back.   Here's her take on string theory's version of the multiverse:

The idea of a quasi-infinite, ever-proliferating array of universes has been given further credence as a result of being taken up by string theorists, who argue that every mathematically possible version of the string theory equations corresponds to an actually existing universe, and estimate that there are 10 to the power of 500 different possibilities. To put this in perspective: physicists believe that in our universe there are approximately 10 to the power of 80 subatomic particles. In string cosmology, the totality of existing universes exceeds the number of particles in our universe by more than 400 orders of magnitude....

What is so epistemologically daring here is that the equations are taken to be the fundamental reality. The fact that the mathematics allows for gazillions of variations is seen to be evidence for gazillions of actual worlds.

This kind of reification of equations is precisely what strikes some humanities scholars as childishly naive. At the very least, it raises serious questions about the relationship between our mathematical models of reality, and reality itself. While it is true that in the history of physics many important discoveries have emerged from revelations within equations — Paul Dirac’s formulation for antimatter being perhaps the most famous example — one does not need to be a cultural relativist to feel sceptical about the idea that the only way forward now is to accept an infinite cosmic ‘landscape’ of universes that embrace every conceivable version of world history, including those in which the Middle Ages never ended or Hitler won.

As for Smolin's book, she writes:

Time indeed is a huge conundrum throughout physics, and paradoxes surround it at many levels of being. In Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe (2013) the American physicist Lee Smolin argues that for 400 years physicists have been thinking about time in ways that are fundamentally at odds with human experience and therefore wrong. In order to extricate ourselves from some of the deepest paradoxes in physics, he says, its very foundations must be reconceived. In an op-ed in New Scientist in April this year, Smolin wrote:

The idea that nature consists fundamentally of atoms with immutable properties moving through unchanging space, guided by timeless laws, underlies a metaphysical view in which time is absent or diminished. This view has been the basis for centuries of progress in science, but its usefulness for fundamental physics and cosmology has come to an end. 

In order to resolve contradictions between how physicists describe time and how we experience time, Smolin says physicists must abandon the notion of time as an unchanging ideal and embrace an evolutionary concept of natural laws.

I should look around for other reviews of the Smolin book...

Furry friends for science

Animals in research: mice

There's quite an interesting article here at The Conversation regarding the extensive use of mice in scientific research.

I learnt that there is a sperm bank for mice in Australia.  You can visit the website here.

I wonder if they have tiny magazines available for use by the donors....

We believe (no we don't)

Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald notes that last week in Parliament, a motion was passed with no dissent on climate change:

The Parliament was debating a motion put by NSW independent Rob Oakeshott to try to clear that up: "That this House expresses full confidence in the work of Australia's science community and confirms that it believes that man-made climate change is not a conspiracy or a con, but a real and serious threat to Australia if left unaddressed".

Why did Oakeshott think it necessary? "I thought it was important to get everyone on the record. Some of the Coalition members run around the country playing to an audience of conspiracy theorists and deniers."

The record does show that about a quarter of the Coalition's federal MPs have, at some point, expressed disbelief or outright denial that man-made climate change is real.... 

But when the Oakeshott motion was put to the House, the sceptics were nowhere to be seen. No one spoke against it in the bright glare of full national scrutiny: "We accept the science, we accept the targets and we accept the need for a market mechanism; we just happen to clearly, absolutely, fundamentally disagree over the choice of those mechanisms," Coalition spokesman Greg Hunt said. Prime among them, the carbon tax.

And when it came to the vote, the motion was carried on the voices, without dissent. This is taken as a unanimous vote. It "positions the deniers and the conspiracy theorists where they should be - on the fringe," Oakeshott says.

Here's what's missing from Hartcher's column.  From Michelle Grattan last week:

The Nats are having their jamboree, AKA federal council, in Canberra tomorrow, as the party juggles trying to keep its own voice while singing in the Abbott choir.

A morning highlight was to have been an address by climate sceptic professor Ian Plimer, sponsored by a Gina Rinehart company, of which Plimer is a director. But now his place is set to be taken by another Gina man, CEO of Hancock Prospecting, Tad Watroba, who earlier thought he couldn’t make the function. ....
The fact Plimer was on the program to speak says heaps – the Nationals were not afraid of the signals it might send, despite Abbott trying to ensure the argument about climate change itself, as distinct from the carbon tax as a way of dealing with it, doesn’t become an issue. Can anyone imagine the Liberal federal council having a climate sceptic as a featured speaker?

Two bits of physics

There are a couple of interesting posts out there about physics:

1.  Lee Smolin is the subject of a short article (including a video) about his new book summarised as follows:

Time is real, the laws of physics can change and our universe could be involved in a cosmic natural selection process in which new universes are born from black holes, renowned physicist and author Lee Smolin said in a talk at the Institute of Physics on 22 May.

 His views are contrary to the widely-accepted model of the universe in which time is an illusion and the laws of physics are fixed, as held by Einstein and many contemporary physicists as well as some ancient philosophers, Prof. Smolin said. Acknowledging that his statements were provocative, he explained how he had come to change his mind about the nature of reality and had moved away from the idea that the assumptions that apply to observations in a laboratory can be extrapolated to the whole universe. The debate had sometimes taken a metaphysical turn, he said, in which the idea that time is not real had led some to conclude that everything that humans value – such as free will, imagination and agency – is also an illusion. "Is it any wonder that so many people don't buy science? This is what is at stake," he said.

2.   Bee at Backreaction talks about the multiverse, inflation and cyclic models.  A bit technical but worth it.

She also reviewed Lee Smolin's book the subject of the point 1, and did not care for it.  Physicists, I don't know.

The trouble with Chris

Christopher Pyne has, it seems to me, made it pretty clear in the last 12 months that he tells tactical lies if he thinks he will get away with it.

There are now three examples which indicate his lack of close intimacy with forthright truthfulness:

1.   His attempts to distance himself from the James Ashby complaint about Peter Slipper was full of denials which were proved completely wrong; and the "oh I forgot about that" excuses were just not credible.

2.   The explanation attempted as to why that Labor MP was given a pair (that her request had not specified it was her sick child she wanted to visit) was shown to be wrong by reporters as soon as it said it:

Mr Pyne said the leave was requested on Monday for Ms Rowland to be with a "ill family member"  but did not specify it was her child.

"Warren Entsch quite rightly thought … that he would like further information," he said.
When it was put to Mr Pyne by reporters that the letter from Ms Rowland to Mr Entsch clearly stated the leave was to be with her child he said he would be asking further questions.

"I might," he said.

"That’s not the information that I have been provided by the chief whip," he said.

Given the brazenness that would have to be assumed of this attempted excuse if he knew it was a lie, maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt?  Well perhaps, but he does have pretty brazen form on the Ashby matter, and then we have this latest item just from this last week.

3.  Pyne was on breakfast TV (can't find a link, but it was shown on Insiders this morning) talking about a letter he had written to the Independents asking if they would support a no confidence motion in the government.  Trouble was, the letter had been given to The Australia, but was sent via email that arrived an hour or so after the TV appearance.   He was challenged by Albanese that the Independents had not received such a letter; Pyne made out that they had definitely been sent.

Once again, he has a set up whereby he can (I suppose) blame someone else for his misleading statements.

Even allowing for routine slipperiness from politicians, I just do not trust the guy.  I predict that, assuming an Abbott election win in September, Pyne will be the first Minister to come unstuck in some scandal involving dishonesty.

Recipes noted

Excuse me while I note some recent successful Saturday night recipes I've used in the last month, for my future reference:

* Salmon pilau:   I can't be bothered re-typing this, so I will scan it from my very old book of canned fish recipes.  (It will serve me well in the coming climate apocalypse.)  You don't really have to use Ally brand salmon, honest.  It went over pretty well with the family.  Perhaps needs a side salad too, though:

*  Smoked salmon pasta:

Sort of made this up myself:

Sauté a large finely slice leek in some olive oil til soft; throw in some diced red capsicum for a while too, and some snow peas or something else green at the end.  Pour in most of a can of evaporated milk, and a 185 g packet of hot smoke salmon and bring to boil and let reduce a bit.   Pour over a packet of cooked pasta.   Delicious.

Hot smoked salmon is the key here, but it is become more and more popular in supermarkets now.  (I don't think you used to see it at all in the supermarket until a couple of years ago, but maybe I just wasn't looking.)   Your normal smoked salmon goes too oily in flavour when heated in pasta. 

Served four easily.

*   Ham hock with spiced cabbage:  I really liked this recipe, but the kids were only so-so about eating apple with cabbage and ham.  As even my wife was non committal in her enthusiasm level, I may never get to cook it again.  I may have to start cooking for strangers, preferably very hungry ones.

When they can get it down to 10 minutes, I'll start

Forget the gym: Just 12 minutes' exercise a week is enough to stay fit, says study

(Pretty extraordinary, if 3, four minute bouts of exercise a week can help, though.)