I am always impressed with the arts precinct at South Brisbane; every visitor to the city should allow a full day there.
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Unusual art
The photo does not really do it justice, but I was a bit surprised to find this bit of sculpture (I suppose you call it) inside the Queensland Art Gallery today:
I am always impressed with the arts precinct at South Brisbane; every visitor to the city should allow a full day there.
I am always impressed with the arts precinct at South Brisbane; every visitor to the city should allow a full day there.
Caramel and cancer
Drinking Cola will not give you Cancer
Ian Musgrave looks like he might easily have a second career in Tolkien movies, but he writes really well about issues to do with toxic chemicals and food and the misleading way studies about same are often reported.
In the link above, he talks about caramel in cola drinks, and gives me reassurance that my modest consumption of diet cola is not likely to kill me, at least from that substance.
He also wrote interestingly about coffee recently, and I had probably read before but forgotten this:
Ian Musgrave looks like he might easily have a second career in Tolkien movies, but he writes really well about issues to do with toxic chemicals and food and the misleading way studies about same are often reported.
In the link above, he talks about caramel in cola drinks, and gives me reassurance that my modest consumption of diet cola is not likely to kill me, at least from that substance.
He also wrote interestingly about coffee recently, and I had probably read before but forgotten this:
....in fact studies consistently show that coffee consumption actually reduces your risk of diabetes (see here, here and here for systematic reviews). In at least one study, the risk was reduced by around 35%, which is quite good.Yes, it is. But only if it works with freeze dried coffee, too...
Horsing around
It seemed time for my once a decade or so trip to the theatre, and what more popular show could I pick than War Horse?
I liked the Spielberg movie a lot, as did my son, and so I also took him to the stage play (the first real professional show he has seen.)
This might have been a bit of a mistake. The normal progress is to see a stage show and then the film, and the added realism of the latter does not jar in any sense. But I think, especially for a younger person, seeing the film first adds to the awareness of the "staginess" of a stage production. He still liked it, more or less, but did comment that the some of the actors seemed to be being too dramatic. I said that it's something you have to get used to in live theatre - it doesn't allow for whispers and the same subtlety of acting as does the audio and close ups of cinema.
But as for my reaction: I assume it has been said before, but I kept thinking while watching it "this is like a masterclass of the very best in stagecraft and what can be achieved in theatre." The lighting design, the sets which work with suggestion more than materials, the back projection, the music, the use of songs as linking device, and, of course, the puppetry. I mean, it is kind of ridiculous triumph of theatre that the reunion of a man and his (artificial) horse makes a substantial number in the audience cry.
I saw part of a documentary of how the show was made in Britain a few months ago - it took an extraordinarily long time, with a huge number of people involved. They really deserve their success.
I was going to end this by noting that I would not go so far as to say that it has cured me of a preference for the additional realism of cinema; but really, they both deserve admiration whenever they work and win over an audience.
I liked the Spielberg movie a lot, as did my son, and so I also took him to the stage play (the first real professional show he has seen.)
This might have been a bit of a mistake. The normal progress is to see a stage show and then the film, and the added realism of the latter does not jar in any sense. But I think, especially for a younger person, seeing the film first adds to the awareness of the "staginess" of a stage production. He still liked it, more or less, but did comment that the some of the actors seemed to be being too dramatic. I said that it's something you have to get used to in live theatre - it doesn't allow for whispers and the same subtlety of acting as does the audio and close ups of cinema.
But as for my reaction: I assume it has been said before, but I kept thinking while watching it "this is like a masterclass of the very best in stagecraft and what can be achieved in theatre." The lighting design, the sets which work with suggestion more than materials, the back projection, the music, the use of songs as linking device, and, of course, the puppetry. I mean, it is kind of ridiculous triumph of theatre that the reunion of a man and his (artificial) horse makes a substantial number in the audience cry.
I saw part of a documentary of how the show was made in Britain a few months ago - it took an extraordinarily long time, with a huge number of people involved. They really deserve their success.
I was going to end this by noting that I would not go so far as to say that it has cured me of a preference for the additional realism of cinema; but really, they both deserve admiration whenever they work and win over an audience.
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Saturday night fish recipes
A few weeks ago, I tried this salmon recipe from the Coles website: ginger and soy glazed salmon with buk choy. The glaze and the salmon worked a treat, but the coconut rice (which I had never tried cooking before) burnt thoroughly on the bottom of the saucepan despite my attempt to use as low a gas flame as I could, and was unusable. Maybe a heavier based pan next time? I didn't realise coconut rice could be tricky.
Tonight, it was an old favourite, from an old recipe book I've had for maybe 20 years - The Macquarie Dictionary of Cookery.
This book, which I see was reprinted in 1991, is truly remarkable for the terrible quality of the illustrations. There are no photos at all, just the occasional bad black and white line drawing. For example, the entry on Spanish cooking is illustrated thus:
Yet, despite the terrible look of the internal pages, it has proved to be a pretty reliable resource for your basic household recipes. If you want a straight forward recipe for scones, stews, or (as in tonight's case) trout with almonds, it's very reliable, even if you have no idea at all what the final result should look like.
I've made the trout with almond recipe before and always liked it. Strangely, given her general love of all seafood, my wife eats trout but without great enthusiasm. I've always liked it, and I just can't work out why she downplays its qualities. So I get to cook it only once a year or so.
Tonight, the kids ate this too and had no complaints. Farmed trout is always available and (I see with pleasure) a reliably cheap-ish fish too. (About $16 a kilo today for filleted trout at Coles, and one big fillet each is plenty for this dish with lots of butter. I cringe at buying fillet fish which is more than $30 a kilo, as many are these days.)
Anyhow, for each of my future reference, in case my crappy Macquarie cook book ever falls apart, here it is:
I don't worry about whether it's fresh parsley or not I use with the almond sauce; tonight I used oregano (which grows permanently and reliably in our garden, unlike parsley) in its place, although I also had a bit of thyme and its flavour works well in a butter sauce I think. As I indicated earlier, I just buy rainbow trout fillets if I can, and don't worry about extracting the bones. They are so fine they are not going to chock anyone, and even my kids didn't bother pulling them out as they ate.
Maybe I can work up to having it once every 6 months, or 4, if I am lucky!
Tonight, it was an old favourite, from an old recipe book I've had for maybe 20 years - The Macquarie Dictionary of Cookery.
This book, which I see was reprinted in 1991, is truly remarkable for the terrible quality of the illustrations. There are no photos at all, just the occasional bad black and white line drawing. For example, the entry on Spanish cooking is illustrated thus:
Yet, despite the terrible look of the internal pages, it has proved to be a pretty reliable resource for your basic household recipes. If you want a straight forward recipe for scones, stews, or (as in tonight's case) trout with almonds, it's very reliable, even if you have no idea at all what the final result should look like.
I've made the trout with almond recipe before and always liked it. Strangely, given her general love of all seafood, my wife eats trout but without great enthusiasm. I've always liked it, and I just can't work out why she downplays its qualities. So I get to cook it only once a year or so.
Tonight, the kids ate this too and had no complaints. Farmed trout is always available and (I see with pleasure) a reliably cheap-ish fish too. (About $16 a kilo today for filleted trout at Coles, and one big fillet each is plenty for this dish with lots of butter. I cringe at buying fillet fish which is more than $30 a kilo, as many are these days.)
Anyhow, for each of my future reference, in case my crappy Macquarie cook book ever falls apart, here it is:
I don't worry about whether it's fresh parsley or not I use with the almond sauce; tonight I used oregano (which grows permanently and reliably in our garden, unlike parsley) in its place, although I also had a bit of thyme and its flavour works well in a butter sauce I think. As I indicated earlier, I just buy rainbow trout fillets if I can, and don't worry about extracting the bones. They are so fine they are not going to chock anyone, and even my kids didn't bother pulling them out as they ate.
Maybe I can work up to having it once every 6 months, or 4, if I am lucky!
Revolution revised
New Revolutionary War books by Nathaniel Philbrick and Joseph Ellis ignore modern historical research. - Slate Magazine
Not that I know much about it to start with, but this Slate article, complaining that new popular histories of the American War of Independence leave out some of the more interesting recent academic takes on the matter, is interesting. For example:
Not that I know much about it to start with, but this Slate article, complaining that new popular histories of the American War of Independence leave out some of the more interesting recent academic takes on the matter, is interesting. For example:
In his new academic press book, The Men Who Lost America, Andrew O’Shaughnessy shows that the British mismanaged the war not because they were unabashed tyrants but precisely the opposite: They were struggling to manage the most democratic government the world had ever seen. Britain’s popularly elected parliament never had more power than in the 1770s. But partisan politics paralyzed the government. Legislators were divided over how to respond to the American protests, and a free press only fanned the factional flames. King George III, an avid supporter of the Enlightenment, advocated a powerful display of force abroad in part to assert control over his nascent democracy at home.And:
Take what happened in Virginia, where the war was ultimately won. Wealthy planters were happy to champion liberty so long as their lives weren’t put on the line, as an article in a forthcoming collection of scholarly articles shows. They paid poorer men to fight for them, and when they tried to institute a draft, less affluent Virginians rebelled, knowing they’d be forced to carry the burden. The rioters demanded a volunteer militia, and at a high price: They wanted land as payment, and, just as importantly, slaves to cultivate that land with. Virginia’s elites grudgingly conceded, confiscating slaves from abandoned loyalist plantations, and handing out Native American lands that the British had given up after the war ended. Even still, when the patriots won at Yorktown, Va., in 1781, the battle that ended the war, Virginia’s militia made up just 20 percent of the patriots’ 15,000 troops. The Continental Army, most of them northerners, provided about one-third, and more than one-half were French.
These new pop histories of the Revolution are oblivious to the war’s global dimensions, as well as the quotidian reality of ordinary colonists, despite their claims to the contrary. They naively indulge the Revolution’s idealistic rhetoric, even if they dutifully note how those words failed to be put into practice. It makes sense; after all, there’s nothing’s less romantic than the complicated, disheartening truths of war-torn societies. The irony is that these new histories all try, rightly, to make the Revolution seem relevant again. Yet paying more attention to the new scholarship would show how much more similar the Revolution was to our own wars now.
Perhaps there’s a lesson we could learn from the Revolution’s losers, the British, for instance. They took on what looked like an easy war abroad to patch over partisan divisions at home, yet nonetheless lost the war because of imperial overreach. Or perhaps we could learn something from the vast majority of ambivalent colonists, the ones unsure whether the war was even worth it. The Revolution scared them, or held false promises. Their experience provides a sobering lesson about the hubris of war, but one we can still thank them for today.
Friday, July 05, 2013
A strange musical story
From the Spectator, a very strange story of how a Schumann concerto came to be re-found and played:
Robert Schumann met a wretched end. He died in a lunatic asylum where he thought the nurses were feeding him human faeces. Meanwhile he drove his fellow residents mad by sitting at the piano and bashing out nonsense-music until he had to be dragged away — a grotesque indignity for the creator of the most bewitching quicksilver fantasies in the history of the instrument.
After Schumann’s death in 1856, the violinist Joseph Joachim hid away the strange concerto that the composer had written for him in 1853 because it showed evidence of softening of the brain. Clara, Robert’s widow, agreed. That became the conventional wisdom. The violin concerto was suppressed until 1933 when — appropriately for such spectral music — the disembodied voice of Schumann contacted two of Joachim’s nieces during a séance and demanded its recovery. The work was fished out of the Prussian state library and championed by the Nazis, who saw it as an alternative to the devilishly hummable violin concerto by the Jew Mendelssohn.
Go away, Chris
Labor is sinking and the captains are to blame - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
I've never thought much of Chris Uhlmann: I don't think he does great interviews, and is not overly intelligent or personable as a TV host. Despite having a Labor politician wife, and presumably having considerable contact with many on the inside of the party, I don't think he's ever particularly enlightening, and he is inclined to catastrophic forecast for how Labor is fairing.
Today's column is one of the worst examples of this.
Why won't his wife punish him for me? Please?
I've never thought much of Chris Uhlmann: I don't think he does great interviews, and is not overly intelligent or personable as a TV host. Despite having a Labor politician wife, and presumably having considerable contact with many on the inside of the party, I don't think he's ever particularly enlightening, and he is inclined to catastrophic forecast for how Labor is fairing.
Today's column is one of the worst examples of this.
Why won't his wife punish him for me? Please?
Fact checking Peter Anderson
So, the Australian today has an opinion piece by Peter Anderson, from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, complaining that the Gillard minority government didn't do much for business, was too union friendly, and increased costs and regulation, and business wants Rudd to go to an election now. All very much in line with Rupert Murdoch's twitter-casted position (which I am presuming will end up in an Australian editorial soon, if it hasn't already):
And as for Anderson's interest in the Coalition's policy:
Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it's sordid intrigues. Now for a quick election.But Googling around for other things Peter Anderson has said in the past, I see he was not happy with the carbon price policy of Julia Gillard, and was happy to promote this prediction in 2011:
DAVID TAYLOR: The chief lobby group for Australian business is most concerned about the potential hit to company bottom lines as a result of the tax.Shouldn't there be enough time now to see how this dubious sounding prediction has panned out?
PETER ANDERSON: Well the research that has been independently prepared, which we released yesterday, shows that small and medium businesses that are trade exposed are going to suffer losses in profitability of between 10 and 20 per cent.
And as for Anderson's interest in the Coalition's policy:
SABRA LANE: The Government's been strong on this point though. It says that it's consulted widely. It had a number of round table groups. I think you were a member of one of them.Yeah, sure. I bet we'll see a lot of concern from Anderson about a policy that no economist in the land thinks makes sense for the purpose it says it seeks to achieve.
PETER ANDERSON: The Government has undertaken some consultation but it has come up with a flawed proposal.
SABRA LANE: Do you support Tony Abbott's plan to cut carbon?
PETER ANDERSON: Not necessarily. The business community has to subject that proposal to exactly the same rigour that we are subjecting the Government's proposal to.
The accessory for the dedicated US politician
How to Not Urinate for 11 Hours - James Hamblin - The Atlantic
The answer, in the case of the Texas Senator who recently filibustered a proposed abortion law, is (apparently) to insert a urinary catheter and have a bad strapped to her leg.
In other examples of US politics are its weirdest (did it invent the filibuster, by the way? Why does it seem no other country in the world follows this strange endurance procedure?):
The answer, in the case of the Texas Senator who recently filibustered a proposed abortion law, is (apparently) to insert a urinary catheter and have a bad strapped to her leg.
In other examples of US politics are its weirdest (did it invent the filibuster, by the way? Why does it seem no other country in the world follows this strange endurance procedure?):
Strom Thurmond famously opted to keep a bucket in an adjacent cloakroom, where he could relieve himself while still keeping a foot on the Senate floor. During a 2001 filibuster, St. Louis Alderwoman Irene Smith had aides surround her with tablecloths while she relieved herself in a trash can in the middle of City Hall. O beautiful for spacious skies.
Thursday, July 04, 2013
The whales I never knew were there
Whale carcass may be towed out to sea to save pod | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The story is about some stranded killer whales up at Fraser Island, and ends with this:
I actually assumed they always stayed in colder waters. My knowledge of marine biology is obviously lacking.
The story is about some stranded killer whales up at Fraser Island, and ends with this:
Killer whales, also known as orca, follow the humpback whale migration along Australia's east coast to prey on calves.I didn't know that. Obviously, their tastes don't run to humans all that much, as I have never heard of an orca being seen anywhere near a beach on the Gold or Sunshine Coast as they pass on their way to or from Hervey Bay.
I actually assumed they always stayed in colder waters. My knowledge of marine biology is obviously lacking.
Some hope yet for a more realistic European carbon market
Europe’s politicians vote to resuscitate carbon market : Nature News Blog
From the link:
From the link:
The world’s largest carbon-trading market may awaken from its coma: politicians in Europe’s parliament today agreed a plan to revive market prices which have collapsed in the recession.
It’s a change-of-heart from a parliament which had rejected the same idea in April. But although it would lift the market out of total irrelevancy, the plan still won’t raise carbon prices high enough to spur investment in low-carbon energy, which was one of the European trading scheme’s key goals when it was launched in 2005. So some politicians say much deeper reforms are needed. What’s more, the plan still needs to be approved by the ministers of Europe’s member states – a decision that won’t be taken until after Germany’s elections in September.
Clever, clever birds
Animal master-burglars: Cockatoos 'pick' puzzle box locks (w/ Video)
From the article:
From the article:
A team of scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute, report in PLOS ONE a study in which ten untrained Goffin's cockatoos [Cacatua goffini] faced a puzzle box showing food (a nut) behind a transparent door secured by a series of five different interlocking devices, each one jamming the next along in the series.You can videos of the parrots being extraordinarily clever at the link: it seems I can't embed them.
To retrieve the nut the birds had to first remove a pin, then a screw, then a bolt, then turn a wheel 90 degrees, and then shift a latch sideways. One bird, called 'Pipin', cracked the problem unassisted in less than two hours, and several others did it after being helped either by being presented with the series of locks incrementally or being allowed to watch a skilled partner doing it....
After the cockatoos mastered the entire sequence the scientists investigated whether the birds had learnt how to repeat a sequence of actions or instead responded to the effect of each lock.
Dr Alice Auersperg, who led the study at the Goffin Laboratory at Vienna University, said: 'After they had solved the initial problem, we confronted six subjects with so-called 'Transfer tasks' in which some locks were re-ordered, removed, or made non-functional. Statistical analysis showed that they reacted to the changes with immediate sensitivity to the novel situation"
Here comes the drop
There was quite a bit of interest amongst people who follow the state of the Arctic ice cover earlier this year when a large part of it become fractured and broken in (I think) a way that hadn't been seen before.
But then, the NSIDC graph showing ice melt in summer showed ice cover staying much higher for a month or so longer than last year.
But the drop off in cover is now in progress:
But then, the NSIDC graph showing ice melt in summer showed ice cover staying much higher for a month or so longer than last year.
But the drop off in cover is now in progress:
The new, improved Kevin
Honestly, it's not just because I don't want Tony Abbott to win, and everyone knows I have long disliked Kevin Rudd and did not think he deserved his win in 2007; but....
I think it's undeniable that Rudd gave an extraordinarily self assured and good performance on his first 7.30 interview last night. I feel pretty confident that it would have been causing no small amount of anxiety in Abbott's office as they watched it.
Then this morning, the headline in the Australian indicates Rudd doing exactly the kind of thing that I had been thinking Gillard needed to do: be seen to be "punishing" the New South Wales Right.
I am not sure what has happened at News Corp overnight, but even Julia Gillard is getting (well deserved) credit for the grace and dignity with which she took her loss of position last week. This cannot hurt Labor overall.
And back at the ABC, Alan Kohler makes the point I have elsewhere: Julia Gillard was remarkably unlucky in many respects (I'll do a post listing them one day), and it is certainly possible that any new government will reap the benefits of some positive changes just coming into effect now:
Update: More news of good politics from Rudd:
And he is making Abbott look defensive and as if he is the one playing politics if he won't take the briefings on offer.
One final point: Rudd's manner of speaking last night seemed to me to have few of his old Rudd-isms. It was more direct, and (if I recall correctly) had none of his faux folkiness which so many have found annoying in the past.
Update 2: Anxiety levels are rising at Catallaxy, and the name calling increasing. How amusing.
I think it's undeniable that Rudd gave an extraordinarily self assured and good performance on his first 7.30 interview last night. I feel pretty confident that it would have been causing no small amount of anxiety in Abbott's office as they watched it.
Then this morning, the headline in the Australian indicates Rudd doing exactly the kind of thing that I had been thinking Gillard needed to do: be seen to be "punishing" the New South Wales Right.
I am not sure what has happened at News Corp overnight, but even Julia Gillard is getting (well deserved) credit for the grace and dignity with which she took her loss of position last week. This cannot hurt Labor overall.
And back at the ABC, Alan Kohler makes the point I have elsewhere: Julia Gillard was remarkably unlucky in many respects (I'll do a post listing them one day), and it is certainly possible that any new government will reap the benefits of some positive changes just coming into effect now:
If the ALP loses this year it can count itself very unlucky indeed: the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd Government will have exactly encompassed the second-biggest crash and world recession in history followed by the slowest, most difficult recovery.I would not be surprised to see significant betting market odds moving towards Labor as a result of all of this.
Compare that with John Howard, who, after winning that 2001 election, governed during one of the great economic booms in history, escaping into satisfied retirement 24 days after the stock market peaked.
Julia Gillard, in fact, was doubly unlucky because a key part of America's recovery from the bust that its own credit excesses had caused was the debasement of its currency. When the 2010 election was held on August 21, the Australian dollar exchange rate was 89.38 US cents on its way to parity by the end of that year and $US1.10 by mid 2011.
So by coincidence, Gillard's leadership more or less exactly encompassed the period of Aussie dollar strength, caused entirely by US dollar weakness. The good news is that it has allowed 2 percentage points to come off interest rates because of low inflation, but that didn't help Australia's first female prime minister.
Update: More news of good politics from Rudd:
Kevin Rudd has offered Tony Abbott a series of unprecedented briefings from the nation's security chiefs as he attempts to turn the tables on the Opposition Leader in the debate on asylum seekers.Rudd's approach to this is very much like Peter Beattie, I think: admit a past mistake, but move forward with a positive "we can fix it, though" attitude, and people might accept it.
The Prime Minister has written to Mr Abbott promising access to the heads of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Immigration Department, saying the coalition should have the latest confidential information on people smuggling.
And he is making Abbott look defensive and as if he is the one playing politics if he won't take the briefings on offer.
One final point: Rudd's manner of speaking last night seemed to me to have few of his old Rudd-isms. It was more direct, and (if I recall correctly) had none of his faux folkiness which so many have found annoying in the past.
Update 2: Anxiety levels are rising at Catallaxy, and the name calling increasing. How amusing.
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Whoops
I seem to have found a way to delete comments by accident when using my tablet last night. Two were disappeared, but it wasn't intentional..and I am sorry about that.
How they deal with child abuse allegations in Poland
Poland: A dark side of the Catholic Church | The Economist
Someone writing in The Economist in May this year:
Someone writing in The Economist in May this year:
One of the three items also featured my own experience whilst trying to investigate a case for France 24 television. We had spoken to a man who told us he had been abused in the late 1970s by someone who was now rector of a parish in Szczecin. We travelled to the parish and found the cleric in question (who cannot be named for legal reasons) leading mass. Afterwards, I asked him whether he had any comment to make on the allegations, and got an astonishing reaction. Accusing us of filming illegally, the priest led both me and the cameraman into the rectory… and locked us in.
After a few minutes we tried to escape, and were violently blocked by the cleric. Fortunately, in the scuffle that ensued he dropped his keys and we were able to get out. Our detention had lasted less than ten minutes and nobody was hurt. But since we had managed to film the whole thing on two cameras, we gave some of the footage to local journalists.The story made the national news the following day, prompting a degree of fuss, though not exactly an uproar.
What is remarkable is the reaction from the Church. For two days neither parish nor diocese would comment at all. Then came a statement from the diocese spokesman to the effect that they were looking into the possibility of charging us with trespassing and slander. According to prosecutors no such complaint has yet been lodged. We had already reported the incident to the police.
The spokesman also told TVN he had no knowledge of paedophilia charges against the priest in question. The very same spokesman’s signature is on documents relating to the formal complaint the victim lodged with the diocese more than two years ago
A couple of hydrogen fuel cell car stories
Acal Energy says its new hydrogen fuel cell is good for 300,000 miles
From the company's press release:
This article Honda, GM plan to establish alliance for fuel-cell vehicle development indicates that quite a few car companies are pursuing the technology, so maybe there is something to it.
From the company's press release:
"Degradation has long held back the potential for the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells in the automotive sector. Breaking the 10,000 hour threshold during rigorous automotive testing is a key reason our hydrogen fuel cell design and chemistry has been selected for trial by a number of the 6 top automotive OEMs."I wonder how much a tank of hydrogen will cost, though...
He continued: "With our technology, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can drive over 500 miles per tank of fuel, and can be refuelled in less than five minutes, emitting only water. For a driver, the only difference from driving an internal combustion engine car is what's going in the tank, but for the environment the significance of zero carbon emissions is enormous".
This article Honda, GM plan to establish alliance for fuel-cell vehicle development indicates that quite a few car companies are pursuing the technology, so maybe there is something to it.
The Australian's war on science hots up?
Today it's aging economist Maurice Newman with a litany of crap to the theme of "climate change is bunk" in The Australian. By the end of the week, it will probably be IPA anti wind gadfly Alan Moran. We all know from off hand remarks made elsewhere on the web by Judith Sloan (the paper's "contributing economics editor") that she thinks its all overblown rubbish too, but she doesn't tackle the topic head on. (There are childcare teacher "dimwits" to call out, after all.)
Seriously, is anyone keeping a count on the number of anti climate change articles appearing in the Australian in the last few months? My impression is that their frequency is increasing, perhaps in anticipation of an election?
Seriously, is anyone keeping a count on the number of anti climate change articles appearing in the Australian in the last few months? My impression is that their frequency is increasing, perhaps in anticipation of an election?
Abbott's scheme taken apart
Tony Abbott's paid parental leave policy: high cost, low benefit | Business | guardian.co.uk
Go to the link for a cool, calm explanation from Greg Jericho as to why Tony Abbott's parental leave is too generous, and too expensive, for no good reason.
Go to the link for a cool, calm explanation from Greg Jericho as to why Tony Abbott's parental leave is too generous, and too expensive, for no good reason.
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
A sad case
Parents warned after girl's battery death | The Australian
I for one didn't realise lithium button batteries were as dangerous as this for little kids:
I for one didn't realise lithium button batteries were as dangerous as this for little kids:
SAFETY experts are trying to educate parents about the dangers of button batteries after the death of a young girl who swallowed one.
Specialists tried desperately to save the four-year-old after she was taken to a hospital on Queensland's Sunshine Coast on Sunday with stomach bleeding.
But there was little that could be done for her.
Safety experts say they're worried parents don't fully understand the dangers in so many household items.
Kidsafe Queensland says an estimated four children a week are rushed to emergency departments across Australia each week after swallowing the batteries.
The biggest danger is when parents don't realise their child has swallowed a button battery, which tends to lodge in kids' throats.
Often parents can simply think their child is coming down with something, with symptoms including vomiting, coughing, abdominal pain and fever.
The Tony Abbott fence straddle continues
Coalition Blow to Local Government Referendum
Tony Abbott is a flaky politician who personally supports the constitutional amendment to clarify once and for all the Federal Government's ability to directly fund local council, but has crumbled under pressure from his dimwit Tea Party/IPA/conspiracist wing of the Coalition to find a way to try to ensure it won't pass.
He's a real disgrace, a million miles from being a "conviction politician" on anything.
Tony Abbott is a flaky politician who personally supports the constitutional amendment to clarify once and for all the Federal Government's ability to directly fund local council, but has crumbled under pressure from his dimwit Tea Party/IPA/conspiracist wing of the Coalition to find a way to try to ensure it won't pass.
He's a real disgrace, a million miles from being a "conviction politician" on anything.
A new weapon against high blood pressure
Removing nerves connecting kidney to the brain shown to reduce high blood pressure
Have I heard something about this before? I can't remember. Anyway, seems promising (and not overly invasive) for those with really serious blood pressure problems:
Have I heard something about this before? I can't remember. Anyway, seems promising (and not overly invasive) for those with really serious blood pressure problems:
A new technique that involves removing the nerves connecting the kidney to the brain has shown to significantly reduce blood pressure and help lower the risk of stroke, heart and renal disease in patients. The procedure, which has very few side effects, has already shown promising results in hard-to-treat cases of high blood pressure....
The procedure, which has been successfully trialled on 19 patients at the BHI, is performed using a fine tube that is inserted in an artery in the patient's leg and positioned in the artery feeding blood to the patient's kidneys. The nerves to the kidney are around the artery and ablated by radio-frequency energy that is emitted from the tube....
Dr Nightingale, who runs the Specialist Hypertension Clinic at the BHI, said: "We have used renal denervation in patients who have hard-to-treat blood pressure. Similar to the results from the basic science experiments, we have also seen reductions in blood pressure which has been essential for reducing the risk of heart and renal disease, and stroke in our patients. This is an exciting new treatment for these patients who have struggled with high blood pressure which tablets are not controlling."
Dr Baumbach, an interventional cardiologist who performed the treatment, added: "The technique is very straight forward, performed as a day case and there are no side-effects. It is becoming a popular technique for patients with both resistance and poor tolerability to high blood pressure medication."
Does Andrew Bolt ever read Catallaxy threads?
Andrew Bolt starts off doing the right thing by calling out anonymous hateful twits who went on line to attack new Labor minister Ed Husic for taking his oath on a Koran, but then he makes a comment which indicates he must (if he was honest) also consider the threads of the Catallaxy (the posts of which seem to supply 30 -50% of his content now) to be the hate-filled poisonous pits:
His anonymous haters are of no account, and do not deserve the attention they are getting. There are too many such trolls on every chat site in the country. They do not deserve to intrude on adult conversation.Hilariously, the "adult conversation" line is routinely used by the Bolt refugees who have taken over Catallaxy threads as a rejoinder to someone who disagrees with them.
Compare and contrast
Catholic Bishops in the news at Slate:
According to documents released today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, moved nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund in 2007 specifically to shield it from lawsuits by victims of clergy sexual abuse. The New York Times has the scoop:
[T]he files released Monday contain a letter [Dolan] wrote to the Vatican in 2007, in which he explained that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”The Vatican moved swiftly to approve the request, the files show, even though it often took years to remove known abusers from the priesthood.The files also reveal graphic details of the alleged abuse, including new revelations about its magnitude:
Archbishop Listecki released a letter last week warning Catholics in his archdiocese that the documents could shake their faith and trying to explain the actions of church leaders while offering apologies to victims.
Catholic Bishops as recently discussed at Father Z's blog:“Prepare to be shocked,” he wrote. “There are some graphic descriptions about the behavior of some of these priest offenders.”
From a reader:
When I was in grade school (1990′s), I was taught by a very devout teacher that one should genuflect (kneel?) on both knees with a slight bow of the head when entering/leaving the pew during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I have never really seen this any place else, or even heard it discussed. I don’t recall my grandfather ever doing this, and he spent at least an hour or more before the Blessed Sacrament each week and went to grade school in the 1930′s when all but one of his teachers were nuns. What is the proper way to genuflect before the exposed Blessed Sacrament? Thanks!It is possible, even probable, that there were some variations of practice when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. Also, conferences of bishops can, by and large, determine proper practices for Catholics in their regions. If memory serves, some bishops conferences have eliminated the distinction of the “double-genuflection” when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed. FAIL.
Against the IPA and the whinging anti-nanny staters
One hundred and fifty ways the nanny state is good for us
Simon Chapman attacks the IPA and its generic and predictable "the nanny state has gone too far!" campaign quite effectively, I think; even if one or two on his list of 150 laws which are "good for us" can be quibbled over.
(Just looking at it quickly, the one which I immediately think is legitimately called into scientific question is uniformly enforced bicycle helmets. I have just read a recent article in the BMJ about the contradictory evidence on this topic, and the reasons why it is so hard to be certain whether it is a net good. What I think should be clear to everyone is that it is silly to expect city bicycle hire schemes to be wildly successful if riders have to wear helmets while on those bicycles. Why can't at least those bicycles be exempt?)
But the funniest anti-anti nanny state come back is this quote, which I don't recall seeing before:
In fact, in comments very reminiscent of excuses given by small government economists today regarding government led responses to CO2 emissions and climate change, the British Library notes that 160 odd years ago:
Simon Chapman attacks the IPA and its generic and predictable "the nanny state has gone too far!" campaign quite effectively, I think; even if one or two on his list of 150 laws which are "good for us" can be quibbled over.
(Just looking at it quickly, the one which I immediately think is legitimately called into scientific question is uniformly enforced bicycle helmets. I have just read a recent article in the BMJ about the contradictory evidence on this topic, and the reasons why it is so hard to be certain whether it is a net good. What I think should be clear to everyone is that it is silly to expect city bicycle hire schemes to be wildly successful if riders have to wear helmets while on those bicycles. Why can't at least those bicycles be exempt?)
But the funniest anti-anti nanny state come back is this quote, which I don't recall seeing before:
Similar attacks once rained down on Edwin Chadwick, the architect of the first Public Health Act in England in 1848. He proposed the first regulatory measures to control overcrowding, drinking water quality, sewage disposal and building standards.That attitude expressed in the The Times uses exactly the same sentiments as Tim Wilson of the IPA and his new bff, the wannabe cultural warrior Nick Cater:
In response, the Times thundered:
We prefer to take our chance with cholera and the rest than be bullied into health. There is nothing a man hates so much as being cleansed against his will, or having his floors swept, his walls whitewashed, his pet dung heaps cleared away.
As News Limited columnist Nick Cater argues in his recent book The Lucky Culture, there is a moralistic crusade by elites who object to “so-called adults” making different choices to themselves.In fact, the idea that The Times could object to laws requiring the cleaning up of a filthy city sounds a bit hard to believe. But, no, Googling the quote has led me to this page, from the British Library, which confirms that The Times did indeed editorially campaign against sanitation, as did The Economist (!)
By standing up against excessive taxes, rules and regulations, Australians are merely objecting to the idea they are “children emotionally and intellectually” because they, for example, like a couple of beers with their barbecue.
In fact, in comments very reminiscent of excuses given by small government economists today regarding government led responses to CO2 emissions and climate change, the British Library notes that 160 odd years ago:
Talk about your lessons from history...While it would seem that many people - from writers like Charles Dickens to social reformers like Henry Mayhew and civil servants like Edwin Chadwick - were in favour of sanitary reform, there were those who were against it. Often, it wasn't that there was opposition to the reform itself but, rather, to the cost or the effort involved in bringing it about.Some individuals, usually those with an economic interest in property such as landlords, objected to reform measures - including clean water for every dwelling - because of the cost involved to install them in all of their properties.Others were sceptical that sanitary reform would even improve the population's health. For example, the journal The Economist also objected to the campaign for sanitary reform, mainly because its editor and contributors believed that cholera and other epidemic diseases and illnesses were not directly caused by poor sanitary measures.
Some pretty good, sweary, analysis
Swear words old and new: Sexual and religious profanity giving way to sociological taboos. - Slate Magazine
There are too many swear words in this article to allow much quoting of it at this blog, but its analysis of how swearing is changing is pretty good, I think. (Even though it fails to note one big problem with swearing - it can become a very boring verbal tic, and this should be pointed out to all swearers who can't go more than a couple of sentences before using their favourite word again.)
The point that is made regarding the "sociological" taboos is true, I think, and I agree that it, broadly speaking, a good sign:
There are too many swear words in this article to allow much quoting of it at this blog, but its analysis of how swearing is changing is pretty good, I think. (Even though it fails to note one big problem with swearing - it can become a very boring verbal tic, and this should be pointed out to all swearers who can't go more than a couple of sentences before using their favourite word again.)
The point that is made regarding the "sociological" taboos is true, I think, and I agree that it, broadly speaking, a good sign:
“What you can see becoming more taboo are racial slurs, but then also anything that kind of sums someone up,” says Mohr. “So people objecting to fat. And especially something I’ve noticed just in my lifetime is retarded. People and kids on the playground just said it all the time. And now, it’s really taboo.”
McWhorter refers to these as the “sociologically abusive” words. “Not God, not genitals, but minorities,” he says, adding a few others to the list. (You know the ones.) These words and utterances, it seems, are tracing a path that is the opposite of the one currently being traversed by bastard and goddamn and other classics of the cursing genre. “Racist, sexist, fatist terms, those sort of things where you insult the way a person looks, or their ethnic identity, have become far more taboo than they used to be,” Allan says. “People with disabilities generally used to be looked at and laughed at, but that’s not allowed anymore. And it’s becoming more taboo.”......
“Not to sound too Pollyannaish, but I think this is a positive development,” says Mohr, “a sign that culturally we are able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes a little bit more than we were in the past, and, at least notionally and linguistically, respect people of all sorts.”
No one is perfect
No economist or economics journalist is ever completely right.
Take Tim Colebatch, for example. I've enjoyed his writing this year, but then he came out a couple of weeks ago and said Julia had to go (well, OK, he can claim poll vindication there, but I'm still not convinced), but today he makes this surprising off the cuff claim:
Take Tim Colebatch, for example. I've enjoyed his writing this year, but then he came out a couple of weeks ago and said Julia had to go (well, OK, he can claim poll vindication there, but I'm still not convinced), but today he makes this surprising off the cuff claim:
The reason is simple: he keeps rolling out the same old mantras, to the same rusted-on supporters, rather than trying to win the middle ground. His recent policy statements on industrial relations and northern Australia passed muster as sensible policies, but we need a lot more.
Monday, July 01, 2013
Not to be tried at home
I see that I missed a post at Mind Hacks a few weeks ago about the history of taking drugs in the most unconventional way. Many wry comments are inevitably to be made when discussing this:
I think we can leave it there, before getting to the topic of taking alcohol that way.
The earliest accounts of rectal administration of psychoactive drugs come from the Ancient Mayan civilization where ritual enemas were commonly used to induce states of trance and were widely depicted on carvings and pottery.
The image above is a Mayan carving depicting a priest giving reclining man a large ritual enema to the point where he sees winged reptile Gods flying overhead. Sorry hipsters, your parties suck.
It wasn’t just the Mayans, though. The historical use of psychoactive enemas was known throughout the Americas and is still used by traditional societies today.
Unfortunately, we know little about the history of similar practices in Africa but they are certainly present in traditional societies today – and largely known to mainstream science through documented medical emergencies.
In contrast, while it seems that enemas and douching were often used in Ancient Europe (for example, Aristides writes in his Sacred Tales that the goddess Athena appeared to him in a dream and recommended a honey enema – thanks your holiness), they do not seem to have been used for bottom-up drug taking.
However, there is some evidence that in medieval Europe, hallucinogenic ointments were applied to the vagina with some speculation that the ‘witch on a flying broomstick’ cliché arose due to the use of a broomstick-like applicator for strongly psychoactive drugs.
As the first synthesised psychoactive drugs became available in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, specialised delivery devices were quickly developed.
Cocaine was especially likely to be applied down-below because, although it makes you high, it is also an excellent local anaesthetic useful for discomfort and minor surgery. The development of cocaine tampons was considered a medical innovation that was “regarded as an especially effective treatment for gynecological diseases”.
I think we can leave it there, before getting to the topic of taking alcohol that way.
A message across the aether (which will be understood by few - the rest can just ignore it)
Gee, soon Catallaxy open threads will be down to a face moisturising Perth man sharing gin cocktail recipes with a bunch of middle aged women.
That and a handful of other men with anger management issues, a chronic plagiarist whose copied works still appears at the blog, and young male student who likes to defame female Australian journalists. (If Latika Burke cares to email me, I'll provide the link.)
Updates: I have a theory that Sinclair Davidson's continual defence of Andrew Leigh - which is otherwise incomprehensible, given that every other economist who shares similar positions to Leigh is considered wrong at the blog - must have a science fiction element to it. Maybe he once travelled back in time and fathered Andrew is my best guess so far.
That and a handful of other men with anger management issues, a chronic plagiarist whose copied works still appears at the blog, and young male student who likes to defame female Australian journalists. (If Latika Burke cares to email me, I'll provide the link.)
Updates: I have a theory that Sinclair Davidson's continual defence of Andrew Leigh - which is otherwise incomprehensible, given that every other economist who shares similar positions to Leigh is considered wrong at the blog - must have a science fiction element to it. Maybe he once travelled back in time and fathered Andrew is my best guess so far.
Infallible or not
Why It's Good To Be Wrong - Issue 2: Uncertainty - Nautilus
Physicist David Deutsch has a somewhat interesting article regarding fallibilism, including (partly) in the context of the Catholic Church. I liked these paragraphs in particular:
Physicist David Deutsch has a somewhat interesting article regarding fallibilism, including (partly) in the context of the Catholic Church. I liked these paragraphs in particular:
Fallibilism, correctly understood, implies the possibility, not the impossibility, of knowledge, because the very concept of error, if taken seriously, implies that truth exists and can be found. The inherent limitation on human reason, that it can never find solid foundations for ideas, does not constitute any sort of limit on the creation of objective knowledge nor, therefore, on progress. The absence of foundation, whether infallible or probable, is no loss to anyone except tyrants and charlatans, because what the rest of us want from ideas is their content, not their provenance: If your disease has been cured by medical science, and you then become aware that science never proves anything but only disproves theories (and then only tentatively), you do not respond “oh dear, I’ll just have to die, then.”
The theory of knowledge is a tightrope that is the only path from A to B, with a long, hard drop for anyone who steps off on one side into “knowledge is impossible, progress is an illusion” or on the other side into “I must be right, or at least probably right.” Indeed, infallibilism and nihilism are twins. Both fail to understand that mistakes are not only inevitable, they are correctable (fallibly). Which is why they both abhor institutions of substantive criticism and error correction, and denigrate rational thought as useless or fraudulent. They both justify the same tyrannies. They both justify each other.
Carbon pricing seems to be working
Is carbon pricing reducing emissions?
A good analysis at the link of whether carbon pricing, and not just a drop in demand, is behind reduced carbon emissions in making Australian electricity. Here is one crucial part:
A good analysis at the link of whether carbon pricing, and not just a drop in demand, is behind reduced carbon emissions in making Australian electricity. Here is one crucial part:
Although it’s difficult to point to concrete short term changes in the electricity market, the carbon price is having an impact on long term investment decisions, which is where the real benefits will start to play out. The economics of power systems mean that it’s much easier to materially affect the investment decisions for a new plant than to affect the short-term dispatch decisions of an existing plant. It has been argued that this already means wind is now cheaper than coal if you’re building a new plant, due to the very large impact of the carbon price on financing costs for emissions-intensive generation options.
The market is clearly responding to long term investment signals towards lower emissions generation. The vast majority of new plants in the planning stages are either renewable or gas-fired. Here again we must acknowledge complexity and the contribution of many factors – much of the investment in renewables is driven by the Renewable Energy Target scheme, and could not be supported by the carbon price alone at this stage.
But the lack of proposals for significant new coal-fired plant is a good indication that the carbon price is having an influence over investor decisions. This is where the real pay-off lies – by avoiding the installation of more coal-fired generators we avoid the very significant greenhouse emissions that would result from those power stations over their 30-year-plus lifetime.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Conservative Catholic Paranoia
I've never paid much attention to "Traditionalist" Catholics before (basically, the ones who are devoted to the Latin Mass, actually follow Papal teaching on contraception, and freak out about how everything in the Church has gone to hell in an handbasket since Vatican II.)
But reading the Catallaxy blog, which has in the last couple of years increasingly attracted a significant number of Traditionalist Catholics and Catholic supporters, has led me to look at some conservative Catholic figures over the last 6 months or so.
What a worry they are. In the US, they have culturally aligned with the Tea Party, so I suppose it should be no surprise that they seem to like Catallaxy, which is like the Australian Tea Party sub branch.
Father Z's blog seems to be very popular in the US, and I gather that Zuhlsdorf has been on Fox News quite a bit. A look around his blog indicates he likes guns, and nuns who use them. (Yes, really.) The blog gives an excellent taste of the Pharisaical obsession that this branch of Catholicism has with liturgy.
He is pals with Michael Voris, a conservative lay Catholic who has built a subscription media business out of videoing himself every second day explaining how the Church must return to its pre-Vatican II state. He seems to be pretty big in the Trad Catholic circles, but how is it possible that a man (especially an American) who advocated in all seriousness that a Catholic monarchy is "the only way to run a country" still have any popularity at all? He does tick the box on other Right wing obsessions, though: climate change is all a conspiracy to do something or other, for example.
In any event, the point of the post is this: it would seem that the recent legal successes in court cases in the US for gay marriage, as well as Italian media reporting about gay priest in the Vatican, has sent both of the them in great paranoid spasms about the e-vil currently befalling the Church. Here's Father Z a few days ago:
Voris has also been in Rome recently at the same time as Zuhlsdorf, both attending the same liturgy conference I think, and if you have never seen him before, this video of him hyperventilating about Roman gay priests and whether there is Satanism involved is as good a place as any, I guess.
(Actually, you could also look at this video in which he also paints the broad picture that the Church has gone all wrong since about 1960.)
These guys are hopeless: poisonous Catholic Right wing cultural throwbacks who lack charity to a profound degree. Even if they are "right" on a topic, they express it in such a way that it is embarrassing to say one agrees with them. The Church will pass them by, but their ugly noise in the meantime is interesting to watch in a train wreck type of way.
But reading the Catallaxy blog, which has in the last couple of years increasingly attracted a significant number of Traditionalist Catholics and Catholic supporters, has led me to look at some conservative Catholic figures over the last 6 months or so.
What a worry they are. In the US, they have culturally aligned with the Tea Party, so I suppose it should be no surprise that they seem to like Catallaxy, which is like the Australian Tea Party sub branch.
Father Z's blog seems to be very popular in the US, and I gather that Zuhlsdorf has been on Fox News quite a bit. A look around his blog indicates he likes guns, and nuns who use them. (Yes, really.) The blog gives an excellent taste of the Pharisaical obsession that this branch of Catholicism has with liturgy.
He is pals with Michael Voris, a conservative lay Catholic who has built a subscription media business out of videoing himself every second day explaining how the Church must return to its pre-Vatican II state. He seems to be pretty big in the Trad Catholic circles, but how is it possible that a man (especially an American) who advocated in all seriousness that a Catholic monarchy is "the only way to run a country" still have any popularity at all? He does tick the box on other Right wing obsessions, though: climate change is all a conspiracy to do something or other, for example.
In any event, the point of the post is this: it would seem that the recent legal successes in court cases in the US for gay marriage, as well as Italian media reporting about gay priest in the Vatican, has sent both of the them in great paranoid spasms about the e-vil currently befalling the Church. Here's Father Z a few days ago:
There are those who hate the Church with as much hate as we love the Church. They are organized, they have a great resources, they have a Dark Prince. Dreadful liberal publications and websites, and even the blitherings of some priests and bishops, are only shadows of the deeper agenda flickered out on the back of the cave for popular consumption by barely witting dupes.Yes sir-ee. Purity of liturgy is the answer to the "homosexual networking" in Rome. Sure.
Deeper enemies, like our own beautiful missionaries and martyrs of ages past, are willing to set aside their appetites, put on a facade, and endure for patient years for the sake of a long term plan.
Yes, I buy it. I have seen manifestations of communist, Masonic, and especially homosexual networking in the Church both in the USA and in Rome. It would be stupidly naive to think that it isn’t present. In the USA, Masonic and communist? Maybe not so much. Elsewhere, yes. The other thing? Ohhhh, yes.
Those agents will probably go to Hell. Let us remember that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church.
However, Our Lord did not promise that Hell would not prevail in these USA or, in the Roman Curia, in any other particular place.
When you hear awful stories, do not become discouraged.
We are nearing some kind of turning point. I think it is time to press forward HARD and with courage to renew our Holy Church’s liturgical worship, the best, clean antidote.
Voris has also been in Rome recently at the same time as Zuhlsdorf, both attending the same liturgy conference I think, and if you have never seen him before, this video of him hyperventilating about Roman gay priests and whether there is Satanism involved is as good a place as any, I guess.
(Actually, you could also look at this video in which he also paints the broad picture that the Church has gone all wrong since about 1960.)
These guys are hopeless: poisonous Catholic Right wing cultural throwbacks who lack charity to a profound degree. Even if they are "right" on a topic, they express it in such a way that it is embarrassing to say one agrees with them. The Church will pass them by, but their ugly noise in the meantime is interesting to watch in a train wreck type of way.
Pancakes and the Sunday morning butter explosion
I see that it was back in 2011 that I last mentioned a pancake recipe that was better than average.
I've decided it was too much work for your average Sunday morning, so today I tried another recipe, this time not from Gourmet Traveller, but from Kidspot. It worked well, except for the unfortunate microwave butter explosion. (I have successfully melted butter in the microwave before, but the container used today seemed particularly well suited to making melting butter explode. Must use cling wrap to contain said explosions next time.)
Apart from that problem, the recipe worked pretty well:
Nice.
I've decided it was too much work for your average Sunday morning, so today I tried another recipe, this time not from Gourmet Traveller, but from Kidspot. It worked well, except for the unfortunate microwave butter explosion. (I have successfully melted butter in the microwave before, but the container used today seemed particularly well suited to making melting butter explode. Must use cling wrap to contain said explosions next time.)
Apart from that problem, the recipe worked pretty well:
Then you cook them. Oh: and I added a bit of vanilla essence too, and a pinch of salt.Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsp butter, melted
- 4 tbsp butter for greasing the pan (??? I am sure this a mistaken quantity. Just use spray oil anyway)
Method:
In a bowl, place the milk, lemon juice and sugar together and whisk. Leave to stand for 5 minutes. The milk will take on a curdled appearance but that's fine.
In a bowl, sift the flour and bicarbonate soda and whisk in the curdled milk mixture.
Whisk in the egg and cooled, melted butter until well combined.
Nice.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Speaking of movies, again...
I see George Lucas got married this week. Here's the lovely photo from People, assuming of course that it's not an entirely digital creation from Industrial Light and Magic:
The magazine reports that the guests included "Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and Tyler Perry." What the hey? Since when does Jackson go ahead of a list including Spielberg and Ford?
As it happens, a couple of nights ago I ended up watching a lengthy documentary on the original Star Wars films that I think is part of the DVD set my wife has. I had seen it before, but a long, long time ago, in a life time far far away.
Anyhow, I had sort of forgotten how young and weedy looking George was when he made the first movie. (He would have been 33, if my maths is right.) The work was genuinely gruelling for him, with a huge amount of studio pressure to wind up the shoot when it started to go over, trouble with editing it, and the special effects taking forever to come together and look half way decent. He thought he was having a heart attack at one point. (The same thing happened to Barry Sonnenfeld when he was directing Men in Black 2. In fact, here's his full summary of the stresses he has suffered as a director:
But back to George: sure, he lost his ability to recognise a good story from a so-so one pretty much after Empire Strikes Back (or, perhaps, Temple of Doom,) but he did work really hard for his success, and was essentially behind much of the technological innovation in movie making that was realised with money he generated, so I find it impossible to not have some admiration for him and wish him luck.
The magazine reports that the guests included "Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and Tyler Perry." What the hey? Since when does Jackson go ahead of a list including Spielberg and Ford?
As it happens, a couple of nights ago I ended up watching a lengthy documentary on the original Star Wars films that I think is part of the DVD set my wife has. I had seen it before, but a long, long time ago, in a life time far far away.
Anyhow, I had sort of forgotten how young and weedy looking George was when he made the first movie. (He would have been 33, if my maths is right.) The work was genuinely gruelling for him, with a huge amount of studio pressure to wind up the shoot when it started to go over, trouble with editing it, and the special effects taking forever to come together and look half way decent. He thought he was having a heart attack at one point. (The same thing happened to Barry Sonnenfeld when he was directing Men in Black 2. In fact, here's his full summary of the stresses he has suffered as a director:
On the first movie I directed, The Addams Family, I ended up fainting when, after a sleepless night, I thought I could maintain some sense of awareness the next day by drinking nine straight espressos. When the head of Paramount Studios said that it was unreleasable, I spent the night weeping on Sweetie's (the wife's) lap. During Men in Black II, I was raced to the hospital with what I thought was a heart attack. After spending the night in the emergency room next to a woman whining, "I need quinine," I was given an echocardiogram and told that I was simply suffering from stress and that I should get into a program of meditation. (I didn't tell the doctor that I was meditating when the chest pain started.) On Wild Wild West, I broke my hand in five places when I punched Will Smith's arm.In fact, I like nearly everything Sonnenfeld has done.)
But back to George: sure, he lost his ability to recognise a good story from a so-so one pretty much after Empire Strikes Back (or, perhaps, Temple of Doom,) but he did work really hard for his success, and was essentially behind much of the technological innovation in movie making that was realised with money he generated, so I find it impossible to not have some admiration for him and wish him luck.
The virtual world of Gatsby
I still have no interest in seeing The Great Gatsby, but as it was only a couple of weeks ago that I linked again to a video from a couple of years back showing how they use green or blue screens in TV and movies for results with remarkable realism, I note with interest the new video out showing how the same technique is used to spectacular effect in The Great Gatsby. (Sure, some shots where the camera zooms in and out make the background look un-real, but there are many, many shots here where it's completely surprising to see how much of what is on the screen is not there when it is shot.)
The Great Gatsby VFX from Chris Godfrey on Vimeo.
The Great Gatsby VFX from Chris Godfrey on Vimeo.
No danger for me, but beware Tony
Triathlon Deaths Increasing Among Males Over 40
This part I find encouraging for my present lifestyle (heh):
As the average age of competitors in endurance sports rises, a spate of deaths during races or intense workouts highlights the risks of excessive strain on the heart through vigorous exercise in middle age.The ways in which over exercise can hurt a middle aged heart apparently includes just physical wear and tear:
Among the recent casualties: American Michael McClintock, senior managing director of Macquarie Group Ltd and a triathlete, who died at age 55 of cardiac arrest earlier this month after training.
The men's 40-to-60-year age bracket - often referred to as middle aged men in Lycra, or Mamils - now holds 32 per cent of the membership in USA Triathlon, the sport's official governing body in the US.
More fitness conscious than previous generations, their numbers in competitive races are swelling, along with their risk of cardiac arrest. Triathlons, the most robust of endurance races requiring swimming, biking and running, are also believed to be the most risky.
Intense exercise for periods longer than one to two hours can cause over-stretching and tiny tears of the heart's tissue, says James O'Keefe, a sports cardiologist and head of preventative cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.
This type of repeated injury over years can cause irregular heart rhythms, increased inflammation, scarring and stiffening of the arteries, he says.
Athletic over-achievers tend to think that “more is better,” though when it comes to health, “moderation is almost always best,” O'Keefe says.
This part I find encouraging for my present lifestyle (heh):
“If anyone is going to have a cardiac event they're far more likely to have one during exercise,” says Davison. A person is seven times more likely to have a heart incident while exercising than at rest, he says, citing a 1984 New England Journal of Medicine study.
Odd if it was in a movie
A movie based on this scenario would seem pretty odd, yet here it is, the subject of an upcoming criminal trial in Melbourne:
A tourist from Holland has claimed she was subjected to six weeks of sexual and physical abuse, mental trauma and a death ''ritual'' in a Melbourne hotel by a man possessed by an ancestor.
The woman, 22, has told police she was repeatedly raped and bashed, felt brainwashed and was blindfolded, hogtied with chains and forced to act like a dog and live on scraps.
A detective testified the woman claimed Alfio Granata, 46, performed a ritual by sealing an envelope with her photo, finger and toenails, a piece of hair and her blood to symbolise her ''being was no more''....
In the police summary, the bisexual woman said she met the two accused at a party in St Kilda last October and later engaged in consensual ''threesomes'' and drug use. It was alleged that by November he became violent to both women and then the tourist felt brainwashed and could not leave before she was subjected to abuse, death threats and trauma until she was admitted to hospital on Christmas Day.
Detective Senior Constable Marc Hodgson said at the bail hearing that Mr Granata had become ''possessed by one of his ancestors''.
Innovative idea for police public relations
Noticed in the Jakarta Post:
Dozens of boys wearing sarongs and black velvet caps looked worried, some sobbing on their moms’ laps, and many fled the police station premises upon hearing their friends scream in pain.
It was a free mass circumcision held by the local police as part of a public relations event to mark the 67th National Police Day on Friday.
Fry (and me) on loneliness
Only The Lonely � The New Adventures of Stephen Fry
A few weeks ago I noted Stephen Fry's "confession" that he had tried to commit suicide last year, despite his self awareness of his mental health problems. (I saw one of the first stories about it, and probably wouldn't have bothered once it became widespread in the media soon thereafter.)
In any event, I see that he now has a post up at his website which deals mainly with the topic of loneliness. Last I had noticed, he was a in long term relationship, but the post makes it clear he is single again, and I see now from Wikipedia that he has been since 2010.
Fry's comments on how he, as a very famous and publicly popular figure who has a very active life can still be lonely, reminded me very much of part of interview I saw years ago with Freddie Mercury in which he expressed a very similar sentiment. (From memory, it was along the lines that you can be surrounded by people every day who think you're great but still feel you have no friends.) Given that by that stage it was already known he had led a very active gay recreational sex life, I also felt it a poignant comment on the lack of emotional satisfaction that such a lifestyle could entail.
Anyway, here's what Fry writes:
It seems to me that this latter attitude was not always with us. I have the impression that, perhaps up to the 1960's or so, it was not so uncommon for at least the artistically inclined (writers especially?) to travel for lengthy periods away from their family for the experience and personal enjoyment, and it was not thought remarkable. (Of course, being artists, one would also not be surprised if there were sexual encounters involved as well.) I'm not sure when the tide turned against this, but I have the distinct impression that it has.
I don't raise this in any particularly autobiographical sense either - I very much enjoy domestic time at home after my long time as a single person, and in any event, the nature of my work affords little opportunity for time away - but if I was idly rich, I wouldn't mind short trips away. Occasionally.
I'll now end on a note which will probably annoy some readers. I had often wondered when I was single about how it was that, although I could wish I was more "connected", some people who are very outgoing, busy and popular with people (such as Mercury and Fry) can still feel lonely. Fry perhaps has bipolar as a possible explanation, but I don't think that is always the case for people who feel like him.
My suspicion is that, for people who believe (or even, perhaps, have just believed in the past) in a personal God (or any non materialist belief system which involves an otherworldly care for their well being?) may always have a more fundamental feeling of worthiness that helps prevent loneliness from moving into despair. If this is true, it shows the value of teaching such types of religious belief to children, rather than the modern idea that it is more honest to let them know intellectually about all religions and decide which (if any) is true when they grow up. And as for not teaching religion at all until people are adults, coming new to a belief in a personal God, or a deceased relative watching over you, carries too readily for them the suspicion of wish fulfilment. But if you have a child feeling emotionally that it is true, and noticing that it provides comfort for others in their family, I half suspect that the psychological benefit persists even if they become agnostic in the future.
There's probably been some work on this somewhere which I could go looking for, but not right now.
A few weeks ago I noted Stephen Fry's "confession" that he had tried to commit suicide last year, despite his self awareness of his mental health problems. (I saw one of the first stories about it, and probably wouldn't have bothered once it became widespread in the media soon thereafter.)
In any event, I see that he now has a post up at his website which deals mainly with the topic of loneliness. Last I had noticed, he was a in long term relationship, but the post makes it clear he is single again, and I see now from Wikipedia that he has been since 2010.
Fry's comments on how he, as a very famous and publicly popular figure who has a very active life can still be lonely, reminded me very much of part of interview I saw years ago with Freddie Mercury in which he expressed a very similar sentiment. (From memory, it was along the lines that you can be surrounded by people every day who think you're great but still feel you have no friends.) Given that by that stage it was already known he had led a very active gay recreational sex life, I also felt it a poignant comment on the lack of emotional satisfaction that such a lifestyle could entail.
Anyway, here's what Fry writes:
In the end loneliness is the most terrible and contradictory of my problems. I hate having only myself to come home to. If I have a book to write, it’s fine. I’m up so early in the morning that even I pop out for an early supper I am happy to go straight to bed, eager to be up and writing at dawn the next day. But otherwise…I think that there may be many people out there who understand this - more than Stephen realises, probably. When single, intimate (not just sexual) company can be missed sorely; yet when in relationships, any desire for time alone can be seen as being a slight on the partner or family, and people may feel a bit bad for even wanting some time alone.
It’s not that I want a sexual partner, a long-term partner, someone to share a bed and a snuggle on the sofa with – although perhaps I do and in the past I have had and it has been joyful. But the fact is I value my privacy too. It’s a lose-lose matter. I don’t want to be alone, but I want to be left alone. Perhaps this is just a form of narcissism, vanity, overdemanding entitlement – give it whatever derogatory term you think it deserves. I don’t know the answer.
I suppose I just don’t like my own company very much. Which is odd, given how many times people very kindly tell me that they’d put me on their ideal dinner party guestlist. I do think I can usually be relied upon to be good company when I’m out and about and sitting round a table chatting, being silly, sharing jokes and stories and bringing shy people out of their shells.
But then I get home and I’m all alone again.
It seems to me that this latter attitude was not always with us. I have the impression that, perhaps up to the 1960's or so, it was not so uncommon for at least the artistically inclined (writers especially?) to travel for lengthy periods away from their family for the experience and personal enjoyment, and it was not thought remarkable. (Of course, being artists, one would also not be surprised if there were sexual encounters involved as well.) I'm not sure when the tide turned against this, but I have the distinct impression that it has.
I don't raise this in any particularly autobiographical sense either - I very much enjoy domestic time at home after my long time as a single person, and in any event, the nature of my work affords little opportunity for time away - but if I was idly rich, I wouldn't mind short trips away. Occasionally.
I'll now end on a note which will probably annoy some readers. I had often wondered when I was single about how it was that, although I could wish I was more "connected", some people who are very outgoing, busy and popular with people (such as Mercury and Fry) can still feel lonely. Fry perhaps has bipolar as a possible explanation, but I don't think that is always the case for people who feel like him.
My suspicion is that, for people who believe (or even, perhaps, have just believed in the past) in a personal God (or any non materialist belief system which involves an otherworldly care for their well being?) may always have a more fundamental feeling of worthiness that helps prevent loneliness from moving into despair. If this is true, it shows the value of teaching such types of religious belief to children, rather than the modern idea that it is more honest to let them know intellectually about all religions and decide which (if any) is true when they grow up. And as for not teaching religion at all until people are adults, coming new to a belief in a personal God, or a deceased relative watching over you, carries too readily for them the suspicion of wish fulfilment. But if you have a child feeling emotionally that it is true, and noticing that it provides comfort for others in their family, I half suspect that the psychological benefit persists even if they become agnostic in the future.
There's probably been some work on this somewhere which I could go looking for, but not right now.
Friday, June 28, 2013
On the Rudd return
Harry Clarke has a personal dislike of Rudd that's probably even more intense than mine, but his post on the return of the bizarrely popular politician is pretty accurate. Rather me doing a fresh post, I'll just put here my comment that I made at his blog, with a couple of corrections:
It’s hard to disagree with this analysis. If Rudd had put as much effort into helping articulate government policies as he did in getting revenge on those who dumped him, it could have helped the polling. But it didn’t suit him to do so.* I have never, ever seen so much of the Right in Australian politics so ugly and dumb as it is at the moment. With a few moderates in the Liberals leaving at the election, this could possibly get worse.
Still, the biggest mystery is why Rudd is relatively popular with the public in the first place. It’s always been a puzzle to me, and it seems to be an unfortunate consequence of most voters only getting their news from the 6 pm TV bulletin that they did not have a clue that Rudd was replaced due to his own (hidden from the public) appalling management skills that many considered made him impossible to work with – not due to some vicious ambition of Julia Gillard to replace him at all cost. Those of us who had been paying attention to stories of the people he was offending (and who knew of his reputation in Queensland under Goss) were not surprised.
Having said that, I don’t want to see Abbott as PM – if anything, the Coalition is the side more in the need of an urgent clean out of ideologues who have been converted to the Tea Party obsessions regarding climate change and a hopelessly over-simplified view of economics. *
Funnily enough, last election I was pretty disappointed with much of Gillard’s campaigning – particularly her hopeless policy of seeking to put off carbon pricing until the silly idea that public meetings would converts dills who get their science from Andrew Bolt and Monckton had been tried. Hence I actually did not vote at all in the House of Reps, but voted towards Labor in the Senate. But then Gillard started to impress once she formed government and started implementing policies with more care (generally) than the haphazard approach of Rudd.
I suspect this time I will have to vote Labor in both houses of Parliament despite my great annoyance at the Rudd re-ascendency and the appalling way Gillard has been treated in the right wing media and blogosphere. I suppose it does depend on his “new” policy adjustments, though.
The little known war
The Sino-Japanese war: The start of history | The Economist
This review of a new book on the Japanese war on China last century makes it sound an interesting read. I think it's certainly true that most Westerners only know a vague outline, and (apart from one or two atrocities), few details:
This review of a new book on the Japanese war on China last century makes it sound an interesting read. I think it's certainly true that most Westerners only know a vague outline, and (apart from one or two atrocities), few details:
It is also a story, pure and simple, of heroic resistance against massive odds. China is the forgotten ally of the second world war. For more than four years, until Pearl Harbour, the Chinese fought the Japanese almost alone. France capitulated in 1940, but China did not. Its government retreated inland, up the Yangzi river to Chongqing (Chungking)—a moment that would later be described as China’s Dunkirk (pictured). From there it fought on—sometimes ineptly, often bravely—until victory in 1945.
Asia has never had a strong China and a strong Japan. Their complex relationship in modern times began when Japan welcomed the West in the mid-19th century while China pushed it away. As Japan modernised, it became a model for Chinese reformers and a refuge for Chinese revolutionaries who opposed their own government’s insularity. Chinese students who went to Japan in the early 20th century included Sun Yat-sen, who led the 1911 revolution, and Chiang Kai-shek, the man who would lead the Nationalist government of China against Japan in the 1930s.
But as Japan’s imperial ambitions grew, China was the obvious place to expand. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria, turning from mentor to oppressor. The full-scale invasion began in 1937. Mr Mitter does not skimp in narrating the atrocities; the stench of war infuses his narrative. But he paints a broader account of the Chinese struggle, explaining the history that still shapes Chinese thinking today....
Up to 100m people (20% of China’s population) became refugees during the conflict. More than 15m were killed.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
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