Questionable link

Are California's giant dead oarfish a sign of an impending earthquake disaster? | News.com.au

I don't recall reading before that oarfish had been caught off Japan in large numbers before its Tohoku earthquake.   But it was reported in the Japan Times in March 2010, so the fish being caught in unusual numbers, and the folklore part, is true.  But then again, the earthquake was March 2011, so these oarfish are pretty extraordinary if they can forecast earthquakes a full year ahead. 

As I was saying a week or two ago....

A deafening silence: the media's response to asylum secrecy

It is remarkable how complacent Australia’s media has been in response to the federal government’s brazenly cynical suppression of information about asylum seeker boat arrivals. There were a few indignant editorials and then the circus moved on.

Read the whole thing...

Kubrick's aliens

2001italia: 2001: The aliens that almost were

Here's a good article talking about all the trouble Stanley Kubrick (and Arthur C Clarke) went to in trying to come up with a credible cinematic alien for the climax of 2001.  

Of course, by not showing them at all, the movie suggests God-like mystery and power, which even goes beyond Clarke's so-called third law:  any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It's just lucky that none of experimental aliens worked.

The return of mother possum....

She's been gone for many months, and the last possum visitor we had was a shy youngster who didn't hang around for long.  But today, the mother possum, easily recognized by the notch in one ear, was back.   Whether or not there is another baby in the pouch is not yet established.

Rubbing it in

A Push to Sell Testosterone Gels Troubles Doctors - NYTimes.com

The story starts:

The barrage of advertisements targets older men. “Have you noticed a recent deterioration of your ability to play sports?” “Do you have a decrease in sex drive?” “Do you have a lack of energy?”  

If so, the ads warn, you should “talk to your doctor about whether you have low testosterone” — “Low T,” as they put it. 

In the view of many physicians, that is in large part an invented condition. Last year, drug makers in the United States spent $3.47 billion on advertising directly to consumers, according to FiercePharma.com. And while ever-present ads like those from AbbVie Pharmaceuticals have buoyed sales of testosterone gels, that may be bad for patients as well as the United States’ $2.7 trillion annual health care bill, experts say.

Sales of prescription testosterone gels that are absorbed through the skin generated over $2 billion in American sales last year, a number that is expected to more than double by 2017. Abbott Laboratories — which owned AbbVie until Jan. 1 — spent $80 million advertising its version, AndroGel, last year.

Can anyone explain to me why Americans are so silly as to even allow such direct advertising of prescription drugs directly to the public?   Surely drug companies still make adequate monies from their products which are genuinely needed in those countries which do not permit such open advertising.

Old actor

Christopher Lee is 91.   Here he is receiving an award from an unrecognisable Johnny Depp.   (Depp must be one actor who can walk down the street with little fear of immediate recognition, his looks are so changeable from film to film.)  

Old skulls

Update:  I've been trying to post to the blog from various Android browsers with not much success. So this post with the following link:

http://theconversation.com/of-heads-and-headlines-can-a-skull-doom-14-human-species-19227

should perhaps be expanded.

The story, which I will now turn into a proper link,  is a pretty good summary of the strangely imprecise and (shall we say) excitable world of  evolutionary anthropology.

It's a subject I have trouble holding much interest in, to be honest, because it has always seemed to be an academic field in which there are particularly strong differences of opinion, yet they are all based on such limited evidence.  

I therefore like this story because it feels like a justification for not being interested in the subject.

And while on the topic of old skulls - I liked the documentary on SBS tonight about the surprisingly successful dig to turn up the skeleton of Richard III.   

Another Wes movie

It's very pleasing that, despite his (what seems) limited commercial success, Wes Anderson's eccentric films still manage to get funded and made.   Here's the amusing trailer for his next one.  (With the talented Ralph Fiennes in the lead, too.   As a good rule of thumb, any movie he is in, of any genre, is worth watching.)

Stress test

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at work at the moment.   Back soon-ish.

Here we go...

There is a feeling of doom approaching politics, when an eccentric rich man with no clear political or social philosophy and some hair-brained, half baked economic ideas is going to have considerable negotiating power in the Senate from next year:

CLIVE Palmer is demanding Tony Abbott repeal the carbon tax retrospectively and refund billions in revenue in exchange for his party's crucial Senate support in a move that would enable the businessman to escape a $6.2 million disputed charge for emissions.

The Palmer United Party has formed an alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party's Ricky Muir, giving the bloc four of the six crossbench votes needed to pass legislation in the Senate without Labor or Greens support from July, subject to a recount in Western Australian.

PUP's official policy is to scrap Labor's carbon pricing regime but the party wants the repeal backdated to start of the carbon tax on July 1, 2012, so companies and households can be refunded.

The Coalition's election promise to scrap the tax is not retrospective, and Mr Palmer's push would force the government to refund the $3.6 billion raised last financial year and $6.5bn in receipts forecast this year.

"In relation to the carbon tax, we've said that we want it abolished from the day it was introduced because if it's a bad tax, it's always been a bad tax," Mr Palmer told the Ten Network.

Making problems disappear

Scott Morrison imposes information blackout on self-harm in detention | World news | theguardian.com

There is something really pretty appalling going on here in terms of political gamesmanship and media co-operation with it.

It suited the Coalition when it was in Opposition to have maximum media exposure of all problem associated with boat arrivals from Indonesia.

The media was happy to co-operate.

Now, it suits the Coalition to minimise media exposure of all problems associated with boats arrivals, and the involve the military in a weekly PR exercise in which limited information is feed out once a week.

Sure, the media can ask questions at these, and the response is increasingly "we won't talk about that for operational reasons."

If the media is not taking an active role in circumventing this attempted and cynical government control of the issue, I want to know why. 

Why is this approach not being the subject of criticism from commentators?   I really find it offensive.

And here's your weekly photo of the Tony Putin quasi military government in action:

Smacking Niall

Niall Ferguson names and shames me.

Amusing come back from Matthew Yglesias, who Niall Ferguson chose to drag into his feud with Paul Krugman:

The historian Niall Ferguson has decided for some reason to drag your humble blogger into his feud with Paul Krugman:

For too long, Paul Krugman has exploited his authority as an award-winning economist and his power as a New York Times columnist to heap opprobrium on anyone who ventures to disagree with him. Along the way, he has acquired a claque of like-minded bloggers who play a sinister game of tag with him, endorsing his attacks and adding vitriol of their own. I would like to name and shame in this context Dean Baker, Josh Barro, Brad DeLong, Matthew O'Brien, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias and Justin Wolfers. Krugman and his acolytes evidently relish the viciousness of their attacks, priding themselves on the crassness of their language.

In my case I'm genuinely unaware of a situation in which I employed crass language to amplify a Paul Krugman attack on Ferguson, though I certainly have had occasion to disagree with Ferguson when he misstates Mitt Romney's educational credentials or blames Barack Obama for rapid Chinese economic growth or says J.M. Keynes was a bad economist because he was gay. Ferguson might want to consider a meta-rational approach in which he wonders if the range of people who disagree with him about such matters doesn't possibly reflect Ferguson's own wrongness rather than the vast reach of the Krugman conspiracy.

Update:  Krugman refers us to a couple of other "acolytes" who have responded.  The one where Josh Barro reviews some of the things he has said about Ferguson is pretty funny.  

They seem to be pretty keen on Ferguson at Catallaxy threads.   I should have known that would mean that he has indeed said many stupid things about economics in the last few years, apart from the "Keynes was gay and therefore a crap economist" theory.

Tony responds

 Carbon price a necessity, says OECD

The head of the OECD has challenged world leaders to put a price on carbon, arguing that fossil fuel emissions must become more expensive if they're to be phased out over the second half of the century.

In a clarion call to industrialised nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that climate change poses a very real risk that doesn't come with a ''bailout option'' like financial crises.

Outlining a new climate agenda from the Paris-based economic club, OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said there was ''strong consensus'' that carbon pricing - either through a tax or emissions trading scheme (ETS) - should be at the cornerstone of all global efforts to tackle climate change....

The Climate Institute's John Connor said the OECD report was significant given the heads of two other major economic bodies - the IMF and World Bank - had called for similar action just one day earlier.

A sensitive viewer

Gravity: I love you George Clooney but you make me sick | Film | theguardian.com

A poor woman explains how she gets very ill during certain movies; and Gravity sent her stomach into freefall.

Watch this tongue

Niki Savva's column today was quite explicit on unhappiness in the Abbott camp at the role of Peta Credlin, who I saw on TV tonight, stuck by Tony's side during some meeting in Asia:

Behind the scenes his chief of staff Peta Credlin has unfettered licence to roar at the most senior of his colleagues, an entitlement that they resent greatly and which could backfire spectacularly at some point down the track when he, or she who must be obeyed, becomes vulnerable.

People elected to office don't take kindly to being tongue-lashed by unelected staff. Abbott has already been told by at least one senior cabinet minister he will not tolerate it.

While Abbott's decision to tone down is so far working well publicly, it has not won universal applause. Four times in the past few days, four keen observers and participants I spoke to in preparation for this column, one Labor and three Liberal, referred to the rigid staff selection orchestrated by the chief of staff, media restrictions imposed by central command, the seemingly languid responses, and then all mentioned one former leader: Ted Baillieu in Victoria.

None of them meant it as a compliment. Even though no one seriously believes Abbott is another Baillieu, these early markers have sent ripples through the executive corridors and those who watch them closely.

Trouble brewing, by the sounds...

Some personal information from a female physicist

Backreaction: Women in Science. Again.

Bee's Backreaction blog is always a good read, and it's interesting to see this explanation as to why she is in science.   Seems that girl geeks are very much like boy geeks, and both have trouble "getting" people:

I’ve never been a girly girl; quite possibly having three brothers played a role in that. My teachers constantly complained that I was too quiet, not social enough, did not speak up often enough, did not play with the other kids and was generally awkward around people. I spent a lot of time with books. I never had problems at school, unless you count that I was about as unsporty as you can be. As a teenager I was very into science fiction. And since I wanted to tell the science from the fiction, I piled up popular science books alongside this. You can extrapolate from here.

I studied math and physics primarily because I don’t understand people. People are complicated. They don’t make sense to me and I don’t know what to do with them. Which is probably why I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not my male colleagues behave appropriately. They don’t make sense either way. And the women, they make even less sense. Take in contrast a problem like black hole information loss or the recent firewall controversy. Clean, neat, intriguing. So much easier.

Yes, there’ve been some guys who’ve tried to pick me up on conferences but for what I understand of human mating rituals it’s the natural thing to happen among adults and I just say no thanks (the yes-thanks days are over, sorry). Indeed, there’ve been sexist jokes and I try to stay away from people who make them because such jokes come from brains preoccupied with differences between the male and female anatomy rather than the actual subject matter of the discussion. There have been the elderly guys who called me “little girl” and others who pat my shoulders. And yes, that’s probably the reason why I’m sometimes acting more aggressive than I actually am and why my voice drops by an octave when I’m trying to be heard by my male colleagues.

But by and large the men I work with are decent and nice guys and I get along with them just fine.

Absolutely realistic, except for...

We went off to see Gravity yesterday, and it's true, it's a truly awesome ride of a movie that is a crowd pleaser and technically amazing, and you should watch it in 3D.  I do not want to discourage anyone from seeing such a spectacle of a movie.

But:  I had did have a problem with its physics.  And with a couple of other things.  On the other hand, one thing which David Stratton had a problem with that I think he is absolutely wrong about.

SPOILERS FOLLOW, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I suppose I could just refer people to Phil Plait's column on the science in the movie, which I deliberately did not read before I saw it.  He loved the movie, but (like me) can't help thinking about how it shows science.

I was telling my kids exactly what he explains as the main problem with the movie's physics:  you don't move around any substantial distance in orbit by pointing at something and firing rockets.   Anyone who has read anything about astronautics knows that orbits have to be adjusted up or down to play catch up (or slow down) with with another object in orbit.  There is no reference to this at all in the movie, and in fact, "point and fire" is really explicitly shown.   Thinking out loud here - if you did have something ahead of you in the same orbit by scores of kilometres (and, hey, the fanciful notion that space stations work in the same orbit is another key thing anyone who knows anything about space knows does not happen) "point and fire" would result in a vector that puts you in a bit of a higher orbit and make you start slipping further behind.  I think.

That was my main problem with the physics, and I had not noticed the other problem that Plait notes.  (To do with George Clooney letting go.)

But remember, as Plait says, there is so much that is right with the way it shows movement in space, it's easy to forgive it for its problems.

And quite frankly, when I saw the shorts showing Bullock being flung off into space, I could not work out how it could be made into a movie at all, because I just could not imagine anything short of a newly launched rocket rescuing stranded astronauts in space.   The movie is only possible, really, because it pretends things that are not real (in particular, the bit about space stations all being in identical orbits.)

My other comments are about the screenplay:

a.   it's much, much more realistic than many other space movies, but I still don't think astronauts on EVA in orbit get to ramble on with anecdotes in quite the way George Clooney does in this one.

b.  George seems to be unusually ignorant of the personal life of someone who is on his crew.   I would assume shuttle pilots and mission specialists get to know each other really well before they get into space.   (Hey, I know, how else do you explain a key bit of character background?)

c.   David Stratton in his review evidentally had a problem with a really key scene, which he thinks "corny" and out of place in the movie.   I think, in truth, he objects to it due to a possible supernatural interpretation.    But he seems to be ignorant of the Third Man factor, and the use of this in the movie seemed entirely appropriate to me.  It is entirely conceivable that an isolated person in space would have this type of experience;  it has been reported by many people before.  You don't have to interpret it supernaturally at all - it is ambiguous, as are most of the real life stories like it.  There was also absolutely no laugh or snicker in the cinema in the packed one I saw it in, as Stratton claimed there was in the cinema in which he saw it.  He must move in different circles.

Anyhow, as I say, you should still see it.   It's the nearest 99.999999999 per cent (that's not an accurate calculation) of the population will get to the sensation of being in orbit.

Update:  Slate is trying to get clicks by running a ridiculous article: Gravity Is Going to Be a Camp Classic.

Rubbish.  Bullock does very well in the role, I reckon; and what faults there are in the screenplay cannot be described as "camp" by any stretch.

Went for a drive yesterday....

A Musical Interlude

I've pretty much always paid pretty low attention to pop music.  I might hear a song on the radio or somewhere else and it can half register as good, but won't bother looking up anything about who sings it or how popular it is with anyone else; then years later, I might hear it again in a different context and finally I think "hey, that's really good, let's find out more about it."  And with all people, I expect, this process has become even more pronounced both as I age, but also, as pop music has fractured severely and no one sits around any more watching TV just to see music videos.  If it weren't for X Factor (go Dami, by the way) giving me an annual summation of what's been popular over the last year, it would be even worse.

Speaking of  music videos, I am always a bit surprised to see that they are still made, and many look  quite expensive.   But given that the only place they are shown now in this country seems to be an overnight show which I assume barely rates (Rage), and MTV is said to only be a channel for trash youth shows, why do they still sink money into them?   This is a mystery that I have never seen explained anywhere.

In any event, it was because of an X Factor cover that I heard this song recently, then yesterday I heard it on the radio, and last night I looked it up and realised the band had done another popular song of the last couple of years, and are from Utah and at least the lead singer is apparently a practising Mormon.  And the song has one of these videos that looks quite expensive, but I've never seen it before.   I like it:

There they go, walking down the street...

The Monkees prove their staying power with latest tour | Las Vegas Review-Journal

It was hearing in the car today the recent-ish (well, it's years old now, I think, but in comparison to the original...) version of "I'm a Believer" that reminded me that, after the death of Davy Jones in 2012, Mike Nesmith had agreed to tour as The Monkees with the two surviving members.  Scary.  (He had declined to tour with the others while Jones was alive - perhaps it was him that he didn't care spending time with?)

So, I thought I would have a look at how this improbably sounding tour has gone down.  From the above link, dated August, it would seem that they haven't been embarrassing themselves after all.  Rolling Stone seems to agree. (And look at the set list.  It's not a short show.)

And now I read that Nesmith is doing a solo tour!  If I lived in the States, I'd be there.

Another day, another happy military briefing...

Derren Brown and free will

SBS 2 has been showing some Derren Brown stage shows, which I think are a few years old now, but have not been on TV here before. (Not that I've noticed, anyway.)

Last week's one was "Something Wicked This Way Comes", and while parts were impressive, other parts weren't.

But tonight was "Evening of Wonders", and it's very good, especially in the second half.   It turns out the whole show is on Youtube.

I had read a bit about it before, and knew that he did a demonstration of the old Spiritualist table turning act.   It was good to finally see it.   But the "Oracle" act, and the ending of the show, are just so puzzling as to how they are done.  Do yourself a favour, as they say, and watch it....

Going back to Something Wicked:  Brown's over-arching career misdirection, so to speak (and this is not a novel suggestion) seems to be to claim that he is a master of psychological influence.  This is a large part of the Something Wicked show, which is also on Youtube.  (You have to watch right to the end to understand.)   He is also interested in hypnotism, and some of his "experiment" TV shows have been all about that; sometimes in ways that have appeared to me to be ethically dubious. 

What occurred to me from watching Something Wicked, and thinking back on his hypnotism shows, is that Brown's career seems virtually designed to try to convince some people that they have no free will.  Yet he must know that some audience members won't be convinced and see it all as part of the act.  But surely some won't.

I am not entirely sure of the ethics of this.  There is some evidence  recently that suggesting to people they have no free will can affect their subsequent behaviour.  I would bet that Brown, given his background, would be somewhat interested in that.  He also claims, at times, to be all about people empowering themselves with self belief and confidence.  But this seems to sit uncomfortably with a stage act in which he probably convinces some that they had no choice but to pick a certain word on a page, because he had primed them to do so.

In any event, this is what I have enjoyed about discovering his work over the last year or so since he has turned up on SBS:  there is something very "meta" about trying to understand where he is coming from and what he is trying to achieve.  And yes, I know he's an ex Christian who has come out as gay and is now very keen to promote rationalism.  (Surprisingly, there is a pretty good profile of him here from the Daily Mail.)  I know all that, but as I say, I still find him and his oeuvre a bit puzzling.

What a country....

Belgian euthanised due to sex change distress

A 44-year-old Belgian in distress after a failed sex change was euthanised this week after doctors agreed to the mercy-killing on psychological grounds, national media said Tuesday.

Nathan Verhelst died Monday in a Brussels hospital surrounded by friends after requesting assistance to die in a case that has been highly publicised in Belgium, which became only the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalise euthanasia in 2002.

"He died in all serenity," said doctor Wim Distlemans, who told the daily Het Laatste Nieuws that he won permission to be euthanised because "we could clearly say he was in unbearable psychological distress."

What is even more surprising is the number of "psychological grounds" cases, and how they have been increasing:

While there were only six cases of euthanasia recorded on psychological grounds in 2004, there were 33 in 2011 and 52 last year.

I'm not sure why they don't go full on Futurama suicide booth and be done with:

Regarding SBY

Indonesia’s 2014 elections: Let the games begin | The Economist

According to The Economist, Tony Abbott's meeting was with a pretty lame president:

THESE days few Indonesians pay much attention to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The president cuts a forlorn figure: he still has just over a year left in office, but steady underachievement during his two terms has so diminished him that politicians long ago turned to the more exciting matter of his successor. Next year the presidential election takes place in July, after parliamentary elections in April. After months of shadow-boxing, the contest to succeed Mr Yudhoyono is set to become more lively.

I wonder what the new year will bring...

What an appalling hypocrite

Grow up, Gillard. No victim ever becomes Prime Minister | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Andrew Bolt has the appalling gall to criticise Julia Gillard for sometimes getting upset with her demeaning treatment at the hands of  certain parts of the internet.   Yet the most personal and appalling site for attacks was clearly Larry Pickering's - both his own columns (claiming to be outing details of her personal life which were utterly irrelevant and which Bolt would know cause offence to any politician) and the comments which would follow them.  Did this stop Bolt from referring his readers to his site?  Nope.

Bolt has become an incredible and morally bankrupt hypocrite, full of self pity over legal problems caused by his own mistakes, who thinks he has a grasp on science better than thousands of scientists, and reinforced in his beliefs by the likes of the IPA. 

The wartime government continues...

Popular TV

One good thing about Breaking Bad finishing is that, at last, the sort of websites I visit can stop talking about it.

I never get caught up in these series that develop a huge following about how they will end.   In any event, let's face it, most TV drama wears out its welcome long before the last series, no matter how impressive the first few years were.  (This has been brought to mind recently by my wife and kids watching early X Files on DVD from the library.  It's the classic case of "should've been killed off 3 years earlier.")

I see that the other example of the cultish "bad dude who people love to watch" drama which recently ended is Dexter.  Its ending went over very badly; Breaking Bad's pretty well.

I have no idea whether I would have liked any of Breaking Bad - I am inherently leery of the moral worth of TV series which dwell on pretty evil characters doing bad stuff for years, no matter how much good acting, wit or "coolness" is involved.   As I have said before, at least a movie of that type is over with in a few hours and doesn't have quite the same potential to influence people.   But I haven't heard of cases of people getting into drug manufacturing because of BB, unlike Dexter, where the connection with actual cases of murder seems to have been pretty much skipped by with little media attention.  Maybe everyone figures that they can kill; making drugs takes equipment and (as I understand it) BB also indicates it takes a certain cleverness.

As for my limited exposure to current TV dramas, last night, under the influence of weeks of ads shown during X Factor, I decided to watch the series opening of The Blacklist.   You know, the show where everyone's first reaction is "oh my gosh, James Spader looks old!"

It's completely over the top in nearly all respects, somewhat derivative, and poor at explaining how the characters are drawing connections to solve a terrorist attack.

But it mainly lost me with the pen in the neck.   I hadn't realised before that FBI training included how to unexpectedly thrust a pen an inch into a side of a neck in such a way that you can nearly, but not quite, cause their death during interrogation.

The show was, in other words, really ridiculous.  And James Spader is old.

That IPCC report

I'm sort of waiting for the more detailed parts of the report to come out before talking much about it, but I note a couple of things:

*  Judith Curry's attitude is "They're not listening to me!  They've all gone mad! Mad I say!"  And she's now recommending people read David Rose on "the pause"!   Her credibility was already shot.  Now it's toast.  Burnt toast.  In fact, crumbs of black carbon which have to be sent off to forensics to see if it actually ever was bread.

*  Andrew Bolt, of course, recommends Curry (his current favourite of the bare handful of dissenting climate scientists out of the actual huge pool of scientists who work in the area.)  Bolt also notes:

It now predicts as little as 0.3 degrees of warming or 4.8 at most. Anything under 2 degrees would actually be good for us, meaning more rain and better crops — not that the IPCC mentions reassuring news.

Of course, he couldn't care less about being accurate, but the .3 degree estimate is based on the smallest emissions scenario considered (see page 25 of the report) - RCP 2.6 - which I am pretty sure would take a massive effort to achieve.  And, as is common amongst the climate stupid:  the ranges Bolt refers to end at 2100.

The world does not end then, but it appears to be something Bolt, and his small brained followers, appear unable to contemplate, even though he has kids of his own.

If Bolt wants to be honest on this topic, he might point out that the actual estimates he should rely on are those which are in accord with his idea that the world should burn as much carbon fuel as it likes - let's take scenario RCP 6, then.

It gives a range of likely increases (on top of what we already have) of 1.4 degrees to 3.1 by 2100.

Unless I am mistaken, even 1.4 degrees puts us over the (very arbitrary, and quite possibly still dangerous) 2 degree limit, given that we have already gone up about .8 degree.

So, the short message should be  that Andrew Bolt thinks you should believe him, and a handful of ideologically motivated contrarian scientists, and burn away and take the risk that global temperatures will increase to 2 to 4 degrees higher by the end of the century, setting the world on a steady course of massive sea rises and massive climate change. 

No thanks.

The Putin-isation continues

Oh my gosh, it's spreading.

I didn't realise until I saw it on Insiders this morning:  the Putinisation of Australian government continued apace last week, and spread from its leader to its Foreign Minister in some "don't I look like a wrinklier Olivia Newtron Bomb, you old fella's who voted for Tony?" shots that turned up in the government PR machine known as the Murdoch press:



Makes me feel queasy, this does.  

Bat curry not a good idea

Toxic load: blue-green algae's role in motor neuron disease

This is really fascinating article about developments in understanding how certain naturally occurring toxins are linked to motor neuron disease.

For one thing, I didn't recall this:

Scientists have known for some time now that exposure to blue-green algae is linked to increased incidence of several neurodegenerative diseases. But the reason for the link has been a mystery until now.

Given that it's a reasonable guess that global warming will increase toxic blue-green algae blooms, I'm hardly encouraged.

But the rest of the article explains things such as how people in Guam who ate fruit bat curry soup were poisoning themselves.  Never heard that one before either, but Australia's outbreak of a deadly fruit bat borne virus had pretty much already convinced me not to eat bat, anywhere.

It's been hot

It really is an unusually hot spring in Queensland:

QUEENSLAND has sweltered through its hottest September day ever, with temperature records smashed in 30 towns across the state. 
 
The highest temperature recorded was 41.4 degrees Celsius at Taroom, west of Maryborough, while the mercury soared past 40 degrees in another eight localities.

Brisbane-based meteorologist Matthew Bass said Thursday's scorcher had rewritten the history books as many towns had records dating back more than 100 years.

``These are new records and some of these places have records dating back the late 1800s,'' he told AAP.

Roma, for instance, recorded a maximum of 40.1 degrees on Thursday - the highest since its weather station opened in 1889.

Longreach, Emerald, Moranbah, Dalby, Oakey and Toowoomba were also among the towns that sweated through their hottest September day.

A comment observed

One of the few relatively moderate, but nonetheless nearly always wrong, people at a certain blog that shall remain nameless writes tonight (in relation to Indonesia being quite aggro in its stance towards the Abbot government asylum seeker policy):

Their treatment of the Australian government is concerning. This is not the behaviour of a nation that wants to have good relations.

Gee, you don't think that Abbott and Morrison grandstanding  on the evening news with Generals  three times since the election and prattling on about military operations to deal with this alleged national emergency coming from Indonesia might be perceived as not being "behaviour of a nation that wants to have good relations, " do you?  Or a new foreign minister who specifically says she won't be asking their "permission", just seeking their understanding?

Of course,  there is strong contingent of nutters there (that blog) who think Indonesia needs to be put in its place.  Let's see how that pans out.  I have a fair idea as to which nation might be doing some backpedalling soon.

In public health news...

Yes, it's time to re-visit that old favourite topic - sexually transmitted diseases (and how people manage not to take risks seriously.)

It's from Catalyst tonight, and it started with a bit of history that reinforced my puzzlement about how syphilis for centuries did not manage to stop people sleeping around: 

 Professor Basil Donovan
Syphilis used to kill more people every year - year in, year out - than HIV did in its worst ever year. And it did that for 400 years. Back in 1908, one in eight babies were said to be dying of syphilis in Melbourne.

It seems to me that such a devastating and relatively common disease ought to have featured more in the novels of the pre-antibiotic era; yet from my limited knowledge of the "classics", it's not that often a plot point.   I mean, how come when AIDs was at its height it was the subject of umpteen plays, movies, books, etc, yet people seemed to shrug off the mayhem syphilis was causing ever since it turned up in Europe?   Anyway, that's another post, perhaps...

Back at Catalyst, the whole point of the story was that it seems medical scientists are virtually at panic stations about the likely spread of antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea:

Professor Matt Cooper
For gonorrhoea, we've now got to the stage where we have one particular strain, H041, where we've only got one antibiotic that kind of works, and even that's not effective.

NARRATION
It's this - Ceftriaxone.

Dr Graham Phillips
So, what happens when that doesn't work anymore?

Professor Matt Cooper
You're screwed, pardon the pun. So we have no therapy left. And in 2011, in a sex worker from Japan, they isolated a Ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea. So no antibiotics worked....

NARRATION
And the rogue Japanese strain is now here, as well as other cities around the world.

Professor Basil Donovan
You know, there's every possibility that within a couple of years that that strain of the organism could take over.

NARRATION
Untreatable gonorrhoea is not a nice prospect. It can cause infertility in women, and blindness, even in babies born to infected mothers. It can also spread through the body to the heart and bones. The bacteria are particularly clever at getting around our defences.

One of the links from the Catalyst web site is to a paper from 2012 co-authored by some of the Professors who appeared on the show. Here's the abstract, which pulls no punches:

From a once easily treatable infection, gonorrhoea has evolved into a challenging disease, which in future may become untreatable in certain circumstances. International spread of extensively drug-resistant gonococci would have severe public health implications. It seems clear that under the current treatment pressure from extended-spectrum cephalosporins, and owing to Neisseria gonorrhoeae's remarkable evolutionary adaptability, further rise of ceftriaxone-resistant strains around the world is inevitable. Simply increasing the doses of extended-spectrum cephalosporins will likely prove ineffective in the long run, and has been a lesson learnt for all single-agent therapies used for gonorrhoea to date. We recommend that dual therapy, especially those consisting of extended-spectrum cephalosporins and azithromycin, be adopted more widely and complemented by strengthening of antimicrobial resistance surveillance. Unless there is urgent action at international and local levels to combat the problem of N. gonorrhoeae antimicrobial resistance, we are in for gloomy times ahead in terms of gonorrhoea disease and control.

In the conclusion it is noted:

It is probably only a matter of time before extensively drug-resistant N. gonorrhoeae strains become widespread and treatment failures, particularly for pharyngeal gonorrhoea, become commonplace.  

Pharyngeal gonorrhoea?  Hard to say what would be more depressing, having an untreatable genital problem, or a throat infection that just would not go away.

Anyway, the end point is this:

Action is therefore urgently needed at local and international levels to combat the problem. We advise that government agencies take this threat seriously and provide urgently needed funds for increased research, surveillance activities and vaccine development.

Well, yes.  A vaccine would be a good idea for an untreatable form of infection, no? 

I see that it has been the subject of some research going back to at least the 1970's, but as the article at that last link shows, other diseases have been the subject of much greater effort in vaccine research.

It seems it's time for that to change....
  

Meatballs return

It seems that Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs has a decent enough sequel.  Yay.

Who's been a naughty Education Minister, then?

Tony Abbott says Government has 'no plans' to scrap university amenities fee 

So, Chris Pyne was on a bit of a frolic of his own the other day, then?

I presume the wrath of Peta was upon him, perhaps.

Dare I predict:  Pyne will be a liability for this government.

Bill Gates saves the world?

Atomic Goal - 800 Years of Power From Waste - NYTimes.com

The technical problems with the Gates' sponsored "TerraPower" reactors sound daunting, but it's nice that he's trying, I guess.

I choose to believe it is important to believe in free will

Does non-belief in free will make us better or worse?

An observation

The new layout for Slate is awful. 

An unusual clarification

Why do people want to eat babies? Scientists explain.

True, it is a curious thing, the way people will interact with babies this way.  I have a vague recollection that CS Lewis even made a comment about it once.

It seems it's all to do with smell.

I am also amused that at the end of the story, the reporter has found it necessary to add this:

Based on responses to this story, I should probably make something absolutely clear: You should never attempt to actually eat a baby. 
The headline, subhead, and lead to this story are not meant be taken seriously. Together they are, in the parlance of journalism, "the thing that gets people to read the article."
There is never any excuse to harm a child. The impulse that I described in this article does not take the form of an urge to literally bite, chew, and digest a small infant.
Rather, in my experience at least, it arises in utterances such as, "Your baby is so cute I could just eat him all up!" and in behaviors such as placing the baby's toes against the lips and repeatedly uttering the syllable "nom," in an attempt to elicit a giggle from the baby. 
I realize now that such phrases and actions are not actually very common. Or normal.
Still, I hope that you will not only stand firm with me in refraining from infant cannibalism, but that you will also urge your friends, family members, and neighbors to do the same.

Nice sarcasm.

Meanwhile, in Palestine...

Man tortures mouse that ate wages | GulfNews.com

A strange story about what some find funny in Gaza.  But there are animal lovers in the Middle East, as one of the comments indicates:

You will have my curse and you will suffer to death what u have done to the poor creature who doesn't know anything. this is animal cruelty. What goes come around and very sure you will suffer the same. way. I believe my god and you will get what you have done to this innocent animal.

Unpleasant procedure discussed

Prostate biopsy blamed for preventable superbug deaths

A relative of mine recently had this biopsy, and I did wonder how high a risk for infection it must carry:

Melbourne urologist Jeremy Grummet said an increasing number of men were falling ill with superbug infections after prostate biopsies when there was a way to avoid them.

The surgeon at The Alfred, Epworth and Cabrini hospitals said the rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria known as superbugs meant the traditional path for a biopsy needle through a man's rectum was causing 2-5 per cent of patients to suffer a serious infection.

This meant at least 142 of the estimated 7125 men having the procedure in Victoria each year were being admitted to hospital for treatment within days of the test.

''We have studied statewide data and there have been two deaths in Victoria from this in the last five years,'' Mr Grummet said.

''Many patients require [intensive care unit] admission until the bacteria have been cleared and patients have lost fingers and toes due to the effects of septicaemia on blood flow.''

Mr Grummet said although the transrectal biopsy was the current standard of care used in 95 per cent of cases, it involved piercing the rectum wall with a needle on the way into the prostate, exposing the patient's bloodstream to bacteria in their rectum. This was a problem for men whose rectums were harbouring superbugs thought to be found in some waterways and foods, especially overseas where antibiotics are used in farming.

Heart stopping

Change of heart vital to stopping needless cardiac arrest deaths

Well, I didn't know this before:

Each year, about 3800 people have a cardiac arrest in NSW. A staggering 90 per cent of them don't survive. But, with these three measures in place, we can drastically improve the survival rates across NSW. We can save lives.

In the US city of Seattle, 48 per cent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims survive. This is almost five times better than the rate in NSW.

Seattle has achieved this impressive feat by providing extensive CPR training to the public, rolling out a network of publicly accessible defibrillators and creating a cardiac arrest registry; the same measures the Australian Resuscitation Council NSW is asking to be implemented here.

Cardiac arrest accounts for 10 times more fatalities than road deaths. Yet while the road accident toll has been slashed in recent decades, cardiac arrest survival rates remain worryingly static. Our success in reducing road deaths shows what a tremendous impact a concerted, targeted and well-resourced public health campaign can have.

We know what we need to do to reduce hundreds of needless deaths each year from cardiac arrest. Now we just need the support of the government to do it.

He mentions Queensland and Victoria as being a bit more advanced than NSW in setting up a defibrillator network.  I must admit, I did see one somewhere recently and was a bit surprised.  They are all over the place in Japan, but I assumed that was just Japanese safety overkill, and did not realise that there may be known good outcomes in cities that have set up these programs.

Out of the blue

Christopher Pyne reveals university shake-up

I don't follow university education policy at all closely, but what I find interesting about this story (and the interview I just heard on the ABC) is that it appears the university sector pretty much had no idea that the coalition had plans along the lines that Pyne is indicating.

That's what you get for having pathetic media coverage of elections, I guess.  Ooh - here's Kevin taking a selfie!  Look, Tony's hugging a puppy!

Update:  I like Ken Parish's sarcastic take on this.

Update 2:  Seems I was being too harsh on the media about this.  Why should they ask a question about a policy which appeared already firmly in place?:

It was Abbott himself who said the Coalition needed to “purposefully, calmly and methodically” deliver on their election promises now that the Coalition has “won the trust of the Australian people.” The Coalition denied there would be a cap on university places in 2012; blatantly lied to the public on ABC’s 730: “We have no plans to restore the cap. We do believe that the more students who are doing university, the better”. Their Real Solutions manifesto stated: “we will strengthen higher education and encourage Australian of all ages to further their education.” Those newly announced plans prove otherwise.

Abbott accused Julia Gillard of being a liar by endlessly squawking her “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” quote, conveniently cutting off her repeated statements about carbon pricing. Funny, then, that the Coalition repeatedly lied to the Australian public , leading us to this Trojan horse surprise.

Annabel on the secrets at sea

Asylum seeker policy: we're all mad here 

 Mr Morrison now assures us that "operational reasons" preclude the timely release of information. Because I am operationally challenged, or perhaps because I have insufficient security clearance, I cannot understand how turning boats around in secret instead of in public creates a greater deterrent, operationally.

My best guess is that the removal of boat arrivals from the daily news, and the deletion of their struggles at sea from the national ledger, are calculated to deprive the people aboard those boats of the last hope they had; a vocal contingent of Australian citizens who still looked at them and felt sorry.

If ever there was a government policy that will soon be reversed, this is it.

A pity - I like their yoghurt

Tamar Valley Dairy in voluntary administration

So, how's the new anti-science, militarized, Murdoch approved, Tony Putin government going?

Still getting the Generals up on TV, I see.

Uncle Rupert, meanwhile, seems to be a pushover for a free dinner paid by people with more money than sense (namely, IPA members):



Oh, so he's a libertarian now?   Well, that'll explain (as well as the ditching of the younger, liberal wife, and being the wrong side of 80) the new found disbelief in climate change and pricing carbon.  

Back soon...

Another day, another Abbott government with the Generals photo

I still seem to be the only person commenting about how the Abbott government's persistent appearance on the TV news with set up photo opportunities with the Generals who will Protect Us an inappropriate use of the military and an embarrassing look internationally:

The only good thing that I hope comes of this is that the military may already be cheesed off about it.  
 

Rising waters

Climate science: Rising tide 

This is quite a good article on the complexities in calculating likely sea level rise under global warming.

The unevenness of the rise is something not often highlighted:

Adding to the complexity, the oceans do not rise evenly all over the world as water is poured in. Air pressure, winds and currents can shove water in a given ocean to one side: since 1950, for example, a 1,000-kilometre stretch of the US Atlantic coast north of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina has seen the sea rise at 3–4 times the global average rate⁵. In large part, this is because the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic current, which normally push waters away from that coast, have been weakening, allowing water to slop back onto US shores.

Finally, waters near big chunks of land and ice are literally pulled up onto shores by gravity. As ice sheets melt, the gravitational field weakens and alters the sea level. If Greenland melted enough to raise global seas by an average of 1 metre, for example, the gravitational effect would lower water levels near Greenland by 2.5 metres and raise them by as much as 1.3 metres far away.

It's on again...or rather, "off" again

Over the years here I have made the occasional observation that the anti-circumcision movement is just  nuttily obsessed and full of dubious claims.  It really qualifies as an anti-science movement - its arguments are so drenched with emotion and hyperbole, and many of its advocates simply sound neurotic.  Whether it is anti science that mainly attracts the Left or the Right (see my previous post) I am not 100% sure - Left leaning, I would have thought.

So it's interesting to see this article in Slate listing in some detail how the internet has become dominated by this fringe crowd; and how many of their arguments are proved wrong and wrong again by proper studies, but they don't care.  It bears a remarkable resemblance to the climate change "skpetic" movement in this respect, despite that being a definite Right wing phenomena. 

And have a look at how many comments the Slate article is attracting - more than 5,000, I think!

I also see that the argument about whether it should be available in Australian public hospitals again as a mere preventative measure is about to hot up too, according to this story.

As to my attitude to the matter:  I thought I read somewhere years ago that some American doctors thought it was most safely done a few months after birth, and that local anaesthetic could be used then.  It seems clear that the health benefits of it are much more significant than once thought, and (obviously) the procedure has caused no unhappiness to the vast bulk of the routinely snipped prior to it going out of fashion.  I think it is looking quite reasonable to do it as a preventative health measure, and it should at least be available at public hospitals for those parents who want it for that reason alone.

How anti-science moved to the Right

John Quiggin � The global party of stupid (slightly updated)

Interesting post from John Quiggin; this part in particular:

It’s striking in this context to recall that, only 20 years ago, the phrase “Science Wars” was used in relation to generally leftish postmodernists in the humanities, who were seen as rejecting science and/or promoting pseudoscience (while some of this stuff was rather silly, there’s no evidence that it ever did any actual harm to science). These days postmodernist and related “science studies” critiques of science are part of the rightwing arsenal used by Steven Fuller to defend creationism and by Daniel Sarewitz on climate science. The routine assumption that the analyses put forward of innumerate bloggers are just as valid as (in fact more valid than) as those of scientists who have devoted their life to the relevant field is one aspect of this, as is the constant demand to “teach the controversy” on evolution, climate science, wind turbine health scares, vaccination and so on.

In the short run, the costs of attacking science are small. Scientists aren’t that numerous, so their conversion into one of the most solidly anti-Republican voting blocs in the US has’t had much electoral impact. But, eventually the fact that conservatives are the “stupid party” gets noticed, even by rightwingers themselves.

Mind you, I would probably put anti-vaccination in the "mainly Left" side of the ledger.

Fear of wind turbines is, however, almost certainly a politically manipulated phenomena led by anti-climate change groups.  An interesting article at The Conversation about this is here.

As I suggested in a previous post....

Colorado's 'Biblical' Flood in Line with Climate Trends | Climate Central

Look, I know that not every flood is going to credibly be related to climate change; but when I read about a big flood these days, I go looking for reports as to whether the rainfall that led to it is record breaking, and by what amount.  

If the rainfall is of an intensity that smashes previous records, and given that we know the atmosphere is carrying more water now than it used, then the relationship to global warming is looking pretty good.

The most awesome medical condition, ever

Auto-Brewery Syndrome: Apparently, You Can Make Beer In Your Gut : The Salt : NPR

This story is so remarkable, I want to re-print the whole thing.   But here's just half of it:

A 61-year-old man — with a history of home-brewing — stumbled into a Texas emergency room complaining of dizziness. Nurses ran a Breathalyzer test. And sure enough, the man's blood alcohol concentration was a whopping 0.37 percent, or almost five times the legal limit for driving in Texas.

There was just one hitch: The man said that he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol that day.

"He would get drunk out of the blue — on a Sunday morning after being at church, or really, just anytime," says , the dean of nursing at Panola College in Carthage, Texas. "His wife was so dismayed about it that she even bought a Breathalyzer."

Other medical professionals chalked up the man's problem to "closet drinking." But Cordell and Dr. Justin McCarthy, a gastroenterologist in Lubbock, wanted to figure out what was really going on.

So the team searched the man's belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

The patient had an infection with Saccharomyces cerevisiae , Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.

This makes me wonder whether some college students will try some experiments on themselves.  Perhaps if you neutralise stomach acid first with an antacid, then take a tablespoon or two of freeze dried yeast, followed by some starch....

Michelle confirms what we knew

Public servants victims of long Coalition memories

 The story of Andrew Metcalfe, who is out of Agriculture, goes back quite a way. Metcalfe formerly headed Immigration. In 2011 he gave a background briefing to journalists (later attributed to him) in which he suggested that Abbott’s policy of turning back boats, while effective under Howard, would not work now, because the asylum seekers would scuttle the boats and Indonesia would not agree to the policy.

The two cardinal sins in Coalition eyes are believing in a carbon price and not believing in turning around boats.

Blair Comley, who went to Resources after Labor scrapped the Climate Change department, had a major hand in Labor’s carbon policy and was a stronger defender of it. Enough said.

Metcalfe also came up with the "Malaysia solution", so of course he couldn't stay, even though Amanda Vanstone worked with him under Howard and spoke highly of him.

And remember Maurice Newman and his "myth of climate change" article?  Well, doesn't this augur well for environment:

 There are two new heads. Gordon de Brouwer becomes secretary of the Environment department and Renee Leon will head the Employment department. Both have been senior in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (de Brouwer an associate secretary); sources say de Brouwer has a strong advocate in business leader Maurice Newman.

 What's the bet that if Maurice endorses him to head environment, he's a climate change skeptic in private?

You won the election, you can stop that now, Tone

Surely I can't be the only person in the nation who cringes every time I see one of these set up "Tony gives a pep talk" scenes on the news?   But he seems to think they're great.  Here's a hint Tone:  you won the election, you claim to want to just get down to work - we don't need to see your bumpf to a room full of colleagues about what a serious responsibility it is, and we're going to get down to work, and you're a great team that will lead the nation into the bright new future blah blah blah, blah.

One of the worst examples of this was, I thought, the meeting with the military last week.  Oh yeah, didn't they look comfortable being used as part of Tony PR, Inc on the evening news:

And is that Peta Credlin in some sort of ninja outfit?

Of course, it put me in mind of someone else who likes to be seen with the military as much as possible:

As indeed did this piece of pre-election "ooh, let's make Tony softer still - women like that" transparent PR:

Of course all politicians do stupid and cynically manipulative PR all the time - Rudd was rightly criticised for deliberately doing door stops leaving church in Canberra.   But Abbott with his daughters sticking to his side every freaking minute of the election campaign, all the "action man" shots (including the one with the army), and the use of the military like that post election - his team is full on Putin PR (except I am led to believe that Putin is more likeable than Peta Credlin, and he has a less compliant media than the Murdoch press is towards Abbott.)