I also note that David Leyonhjelm could not resist the temptation to (indirectly, via re-tweet) re-publish his "if only more people had guns for self protection" line. That's pretty offensive, in my books:
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Before anyone gets too carried away with accusing any on the Left of "appeasement" of Islamism...
...have a read of some of the extraordinarily inane political point scoring attempted in American Right wing media sources in light of the attack.
I also note that David Leyonhjelm could not resist the temptation to (indirectly, via re-tweet) re-publish his "if only more people had guns for self protection" line. That's pretty offensive, in my books:
I also note that David Leyonhjelm could not resist the temptation to (indirectly, via re-tweet) re-publish his "if only more people had guns for self protection" line. That's pretty offensive, in my books:
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Free speech where it's genuinely an issue
Is it right to jail someone for being offensive on Facebook or Twitter? | Law | The Guardian
The article may be from mid 2014, but it really is quite surprising to read about the law in the UK, and how "offensiveness" in on line communications there has led to jail terms (and, no doubt, hideous legal expenses to those who have escaped conviction.)
Once again, I will make the observation that Australia seems to often manage to strike the happy medium between the two extremes one sees between the US on the one hand, and Britain or other parts of Europe on the other.
And it is pretty puzzling that Britain manages to exist without serious internal debate about this issue, especially when in other respects it has a very retrograde social approach to matters such soft porn in newspapers. I mean, why are those who want any form of offensiveness on line illegal not prominent in seeking to have Rupert Murdoch stop using soft porn as offensive to women? Or, I guess, is it the case that the page 3 girl is seen there by some as the last bastion of "free speech", or some such guff? It's a very mixed up country, it seems...
The article may be from mid 2014, but it really is quite surprising to read about the law in the UK, and how "offensiveness" in on line communications there has led to jail terms (and, no doubt, hideous legal expenses to those who have escaped conviction.)
Once again, I will make the observation that Australia seems to often manage to strike the happy medium between the two extremes one sees between the US on the one hand, and Britain or other parts of Europe on the other.
And it is pretty puzzling that Britain manages to exist without serious internal debate about this issue, especially when in other respects it has a very retrograde social approach to matters such soft porn in newspapers. I mean, why are those who want any form of offensiveness on line illegal not prominent in seeking to have Rupert Murdoch stop using soft porn as offensive to women? Or, I guess, is it the case that the page 3 girl is seen there by some as the last bastion of "free speech", or some such guff? It's a very mixed up country, it seems...
Cater goes "frightbat"
Long March with bra-burning Bill | The Australian
I just got around to reading Nick Cater's column from yesterday, in which he gets all worked up about Bill Shorten and one line about women he used in November. In the course of his column, Cater adopts the immature "frightbat" terminology invented by Tim Blair.
I find this all very strange. Immaturity in politics used to be the province of the young Left. (And indeed, it's still to be found there - it always will, while ever young people are generally more idealist than pragmatic in their early political views.)
But with this bunch of nutty Right wannabe culture warriors (all climate change deniers, by no coincidence at all) who want to try to provoke fights over matters where the great majority of the public and governments have become centrists anyway, you see so many of them openly showing rude immaturity.
Yet they are not of tender years themselves. In fact, they skew heavily to white, male and over 50. Or being Judith Sloan.
Strange, very strange.
I just got around to reading Nick Cater's column from yesterday, in which he gets all worked up about Bill Shorten and one line about women he used in November. In the course of his column, Cater adopts the immature "frightbat" terminology invented by Tim Blair.
I find this all very strange. Immaturity in politics used to be the province of the young Left. (And indeed, it's still to be found there - it always will, while ever young people are generally more idealist than pragmatic in their early political views.)
But with this bunch of nutty Right wannabe culture warriors (all climate change deniers, by no coincidence at all) who want to try to provoke fights over matters where the great majority of the public and governments have become centrists anyway, you see so many of them openly showing rude immaturity.
Yet they are not of tender years themselves. In fact, they skew heavily to white, male and over 50. Or being Judith Sloan.
Strange, very strange.
A set of grooming observations
* My favourite deodorant is now made in South Africa and seems to me to not be as good as it used to be.
* I was given after shave balm from L'Occitane as a Christmas gift, and I note that it has "wild juniper" in it. It does remind me of gin a little bit. It's nice.
* At Daiso, the cheap Japanese style "dollar" store, I bought a metal dental pick several months ago. It certainly does help with that problem which is not uncommon - the formation of "scale" behind the lower front teeth, regardless of how routinely the area is brushed. I once asked a dentist why it forms there in particular, and the answer is to do with the close proximity to salivary glands and the fact that saliva contains calcium and other ions. Here, from the internet, I see confirmation of this:
* I was given after shave balm from L'Occitane as a Christmas gift, and I note that it has "wild juniper" in it. It does remind me of gin a little bit. It's nice.
* At Daiso, the cheap Japanese style "dollar" store, I bought a metal dental pick several months ago. It certainly does help with that problem which is not uncommon - the formation of "scale" behind the lower front teeth, regardless of how routinely the area is brushed. I once asked a dentist why it forms there in particular, and the answer is to do with the close proximity to salivary glands and the fact that saliva contains calcium and other ions. Here, from the internet, I see confirmation of this:
Calculus formation is related to the fact that saliva is saturated with respect to calcium and phosphate ions. Precipitation of these elements leads to mineralization of dental plaque giving rise to calculus. The crystals in calculus include hydroxyapatite, brushite, and whitlockite, all of which have different proportions of calcium and phosphate in combination with other ions, such as magnesium, zinc, fluoride, and carbonate.The cheapo dental pick I am using does seem very pointy, though, and I do worry that if it is not used cautiously enough, I may damage real tooth enamel. So far so good, though.
Addiction considered
What Heroin Addiction Tells Us About Changing Bad Habits : Shots - Health News : NPR
I remember Theodore Dalrymple citing the American soldiers returning from Vietnam who successfully kicked the heroin habit as a reason to not overly pander to heroin addicts who claim an inability to get off methadone. (My post about this is here.)
Well, this NPR article puts more flesh on the bones of the Vietnam vet story, and makes the point that researchers think it is the change of environment that makes all the difference.
This makes some sense, and also suggests a reason why urban addicts who are stuck in their domestic environment may well find it harder than returning soldiers to kick drug habits.
It also suggests why remote aboriginal communities with drugs problems look so hopeless.
I remember Theodore Dalrymple citing the American soldiers returning from Vietnam who successfully kicked the heroin habit as a reason to not overly pander to heroin addicts who claim an inability to get off methadone. (My post about this is here.)
Well, this NPR article puts more flesh on the bones of the Vietnam vet story, and makes the point that researchers think it is the change of environment that makes all the difference.
This makes some sense, and also suggests a reason why urban addicts who are stuck in their domestic environment may well find it harder than returning soldiers to kick drug habits.
It also suggests why remote aboriginal communities with drugs problems look so hopeless.
Not decanting babies any time soon
The High-Tech Future of the Uterus - The Atlantic
Quite a good article here on the remarkable medical advances with respect to the uterus, as well as looking at past ideas (artificial wombs, or "in-vitro gestation") that no longer look viable.
This section is particularly interesting:
Quite a good article here on the remarkable medical advances with respect to the uterus, as well as looking at past ideas (artificial wombs, or "in-vitro gestation") that no longer look viable.
This section is particularly interesting:
Since Liu’s mouse experiments, the medical community has more or less abandoned in-vitro gestation. The past decade saw a renaissance in transplant technology, and advances in the burgeoning field of human prenatal epigenetics have rendered gestation outside a mother’s body a less plausible concept. Scientists are learning more about the interplay between fetal
development and the mother’s whole body—not just her uterus.
“The fetus gets an advantage by developing within a maternal body,” says Janet DiPietro, associate dean for research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. DiPietro oversees the Johns Hopkins Fetal-Development Project, a 20-year endeavor that tracks how
physiological aspects of the maternal-fetal bond shape development. DiPietro told me that everything from a mother’s circadian rhythms to her posture sends cues to the growing fetus.
“The maternal voice is heard very well, which probably sensitizes the baby to the sounds of their own language. Amniotic fluid develops the odor of certain foods that women eat, and so there’s a notion that cultural likes and dislikes are transmitted to the fetus via the amniotic fluid,” she says, “So the maternal context provides an environment that goes far beyond the direct circulatory-system connection.”
DiPietro explains that in the future, an artificial-uterus transplant is “far, far more likely” than in-vitro gestation, in part because the placenta, which grows from the uterus after implantation, is “one of the most enigmatic organs that we have.” Scientists can’t understand it, let alone construct it from scratch. The complex interplay between the placenta—which grows from the fetus’s own cells—and the mother’s blood flow, immune system, and circulating oxygen has been so poorly researched that Alan Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development, recently called it “the least-understood human organ.” But with a bioengineered uterus, the assumption is that if you get the uterus right, a placenta,
amazingly, will grow on its own once the transplant recipient becomes pregnant.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
The other half speaks
Robert Webb: Peep Show has taught me we need to let women be idiots, too
David Mitchell, who I think has been the funniest man on British TV for quite a few years now, has worked a lot with Robert Webb, but I have never seen the latter writing or saying anything alone. Well, that's now been corrected by the above article in The Independent.
Like Mitchell, it's very easy to mentally hear his voice in his writing.
As for Peep Show, which has been on for years but I have only been intermittently watching it for 18 months or so, it really is one of the pretty extreme examples of the cringe inducing comedies of embarrassment that Britain seems to specialise in (nearly to the exclusion of all other sitcom styles, as far as I can tell.)
It is something of a guilty pleasure - the language is far too unnecessarily vulgar too often; some of the actions of some of the characters are just a bit too appalling to feel real; and you can start to feel a kind of claustrophobia from spending even 30 minutes with such hopeless losers. But for all of that, it can be intermittently very funny. I think both Mitchell and Webb are very good comedic actors; I just wish the material they were working with in the show was not always so relentlessly bleak about their character and prospects....
David Mitchell, who I think has been the funniest man on British TV for quite a few years now, has worked a lot with Robert Webb, but I have never seen the latter writing or saying anything alone. Well, that's now been corrected by the above article in The Independent.
Like Mitchell, it's very easy to mentally hear his voice in his writing.
As for Peep Show, which has been on for years but I have only been intermittently watching it for 18 months or so, it really is one of the pretty extreme examples of the cringe inducing comedies of embarrassment that Britain seems to specialise in (nearly to the exclusion of all other sitcom styles, as far as I can tell.)
It is something of a guilty pleasure - the language is far too unnecessarily vulgar too often; some of the actions of some of the characters are just a bit too appalling to feel real; and you can start to feel a kind of claustrophobia from spending even 30 minutes with such hopeless losers. But for all of that, it can be intermittently very funny. I think both Mitchell and Webb are very good comedic actors; I just wish the material they were working with in the show was not always so relentlessly bleak about their character and prospects....
Can someone explain to me how this makes sense?
I see that Judith Sloan continues her charm offensive [deep, deep sarcasm there] at Catallaxy by calling Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century "unreadable sludge"; laughs about how it is probably not fully read by most people who buy it (yeah, so by that standard Stephen Hawking's career is worthless too, I guess); and refers to her Australian column where she discusses the book a little bit more.
Unsurprisingly, she's enamoured of McCloskey's critique of the book, which she explains as follows:
I still don't understand it.
OK, so let's Google what "human capital" means, and I take it that it means human education and skills.
So what? Going back a century or two, and by comparison, I'm sure the total world "human capital" has increased massively. Widespread literacy would surely account for a huge slab of it.
But how the hell does some attempt at accounting for that supposed to offset the increasing disparity in actual wealth that Piketty argues is happening and likely to continue to intensify if corrective measures aren't put in place?
Are we supposed to feel consoled that the poor at the start of the 21st century may well have a high school diploma, whereas 100 years ago they may have only had finished primary school? Does an unemployed person with a degree somehow experience poverty less because of their degree? [In fact, they will likely have an un-serviced debt that the unemployed high school graduate won't - no?]
Now, I can understand the argument that poverty today being not what it used to be - all but the poorest of the poor in the West at least have a refrigerator and TV now, for example - is a reason not to fret so much about rising inequality, but that is nothing to do with "human capital" as far as I can tell. And I don't agree with the argument anyway - just in case you were wondering.
If someone can explain the logic or common sense in what Sloan finds convincing, please let me know.
Unsurprisingly, she's enamoured of McCloskey's critique of the book, which she explains as follows:
Her central criticism of the book is that Picketty does not include human capital when he discusses (and measures) the accumulation of capital over the several hundred years.Now, I had read McCloshey's lengthy (and passive aggressive) review of the book at Catallaxy, and didn't understand that point at the time.
“The only reason to exclude human capital from capital appears to be to force the conclusion Piketty wants to achieve, that inequality has increased, or will, or might, or is to be feared”, she writes. “If human capital is included, the workers themselves now in the correct accounting own most of the nation’s capital and Piketty’s drama from 1848 falls to the ground”.
I still don't understand it.
OK, so let's Google what "human capital" means, and I take it that it means human education and skills.
So what? Going back a century or two, and by comparison, I'm sure the total world "human capital" has increased massively. Widespread literacy would surely account for a huge slab of it.
But how the hell does some attempt at accounting for that supposed to offset the increasing disparity in actual wealth that Piketty argues is happening and likely to continue to intensify if corrective measures aren't put in place?
Are we supposed to feel consoled that the poor at the start of the 21st century may well have a high school diploma, whereas 100 years ago they may have only had finished primary school? Does an unemployed person with a degree somehow experience poverty less because of their degree? [In fact, they will likely have an un-serviced debt that the unemployed high school graduate won't - no?]
Now, I can understand the argument that poverty today being not what it used to be - all but the poorest of the poor in the West at least have a refrigerator and TV now, for example - is a reason not to fret so much about rising inequality, but that is nothing to do with "human capital" as far as I can tell. And I don't agree with the argument anyway - just in case you were wondering.
If someone can explain the logic or common sense in what Sloan finds convincing, please let me know.
Monday, January 05, 2015
About the last cold Chicago winter
From the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
The winter of 2013/2014 had unusual weather in many parts of the world. Here we analyse the cold extremes that were widely reported in North America and the lack of cold extremes in western Europe. We perform a statistical analysis of cold extremes at two representative stations in these areas: Chicago, Illinois and De Bilt, the Netherlands. This shows that the lowest minimum temperature of the winter was not very unusual in Chicago, even in the current warmer climate. Around 1950 it would have been completely normal. The same holds for multi-day cold periods. Only the whole winter temperature was unusual, with a return time larger than 25 years. In the Netherlands the opposite holds: the absence of any cold waves was highly unusual even now, and would have been extremely improbable half-way through the previous century. These results are representative of other stations in the regions. The difference is due to the skewness of the temperature distribution. In both locations, cold extremes are more likely than equally large warm extremes in winter. Severe cold outbreaks and cold winters, like the winter of 2013/2014 in the Great Lakes area, are therefore not evidence against global warming: they will keep on occurring, even if they become less frequent. The absence of cold weather as observed in the Netherlands is a strong signal of a warming trend, as this would have been statistically extremely improbable in the 1950s.
Capsule summary: The winter of 2013/2014 was notable in central North America for its persistent cold, the cold waves were not unusual. The absence of cold waves in Europe was statistically more extreme.
Catching up with Kruggers
Paul Krugman has been writing good stuff recently, including his one on Reaganolatory; how the anti-Keynesians keep making claims about inflation and Keynesianism that are wrong; his nominated most important chart of 2014 (although it's not that easy to understand that one); and the interview in which he discusses some science fiction-y ideas as well as economics.
From that last link, I liked this discussion about whether super AI is really a threat, or not:
From that last link, I liked this discussion about whether super AI is really a threat, or not:
Ezra Klein: But let’s assume it does emerge. A lot of smart people right now seem terrified by it. You've got Elon Musk tweeting, "Hope we're not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable." Google's Larry Page is reading Nick Bostrom’s new book Superintelligence. I wonder, reading this stuff, whether people are overestimating the value of analytical intelligence. It’s just never been my experience that the higher you go up the IQ scale, the better people are at achieving their goals.
Our intelligence is really lashed to a lot of things that aren’t about intelligence, like endless generations of social competition in the evolutionary fight for the best mates. I don’t even know how to think about what a genuinely new, artifical intelligence would believe is important and what it would find interesting. It often seems to me that one of the reasons people get so afraid of AI is you have people who themselves are really bought into intelligence as being the most important of all traits and they underestimate importance of other motivations and aptitudes. But it seems as likely as not that a superintelligence would be completely hopeless at anything beyond the analysis of really abstract intellectual problems.
Paul Krugman: Yeah, or one thing we might find out if we produce something that is vastly analytically superior is it ends up going all solipsistic and spending all its time solving extremely difficult and pointless math problems. We just don't know. I feel like I was suckered again into getting all excited about self-driving cars, and so on, and now I hear it's actually a lot further from really happening that we thought. Producing artificial intelligence that can cope with the real world is still a much harder problem than people realize.
Sunday, January 04, 2015
Speaking of movies...
Just before Christmas, I found in a remainder store a book by Australian director Bruce Beresford "Josh Hartnett DEFINITELY wants to do this.." [Subtitle - True Stories From A Life in the Screen Trade.]
Published in 2007, it's simply his diary notes from 2003 to 2005, when he seemed to be caught in a period of "development hell" on several projects. Ironically, the only movie he actually directs in this period is one which went straight to DVD in the US, despite its big name stars (John Cusack and Morgan Freeman). (He really did not want to do it at all, but it's the one he ends up committed to.)
I have a vague recollection of reading some reviews of the book at the time it came out, but I'm glad I stumble across it. It's a really fascinating, amusing, almost disturbing, insight into this bizarre business.
You have to wonder how anything good ever manages to get out of such a horrendous system, which really does seems extraordinarily full of chronic liars, exaggerators, the intensely libidinous, vanity filled stars, and producers who delegate artistic decision making to mere college graduates. About the only thing he doesn't seem to mention is recreational drug taking in the industry - perhaps that really is a bit 1970's - 80's now.
I'm not all that fussed with Beresford's own output, which ranges wildly in style ("Adventures of Barry Mackenzie", "Puberty Blues" - yuck - "Breaker Morant" - pretty good - "Tender Mercies" - haven't seen it, and "Driving Miss Daisy" - way over-rated - to name a few) but he's had such a long career on all continents that his extremely frank comments on the industry sound very convincing. He also, surprisingly, is apparently regarded by some as right wing. (Well, he certainly is a long term friend of conservative-ish Barry Humphries, but it seems clear he is left sympathetic, just not as invested in it as many on the Left in the arts are. He is also sensible and dismissive of those on the Left who do things like semi defend the Castro - or worse - communist regimes.)
Amongst other snippets from the book:
* an American producer asked him to change the name "Singapore" in war drama Paradise Road because it "sounded silly."
* Harrison Ford did not say a word to him - just a few grunts - during a lunchtime meeting. (I had heard that one before.)
* Makes the observation that a director barely has to know what he is doing, but if the technicians around him do, a film will still be made.
* Directors have to have a medical examination - often a few - to satisfy the insurers before they are hired for a movie these days.
* Recently retired Australian movie critic Evan Williams had 3 (or 4?) daughters who all got caught up in an Indian cult.
Perhaps the thing best illustrated by the book is the line by famous screenwriter William Goldman that in Hollywood "nobody knows anything." I mean, Beresford himself admits he's made totally wrong calls on movies which turned out to be smash hits. He also spends a lot of effort during the period of the diaries trying to get made his own adaptation of a historical Australian novel I certainly have never heard about and which ends with the central character going insane. Don't see much box office potential in that, myself...
On the other hand, a lot of what he says does strike a cord of common sense.
What he doesn't address is the one thing I still puzzle about - how the move to digital technology in both filming and projection has (apparently) completely failed to made movie making a cheaper, quicker, more economical business.
It's clear that anyone who manages to get their screenplay made into a film with significant exposure to the market is extraordinarily lucky. Which, like the hundreds of budding actors each year who never get beyond being wait-persons in LA restaurants, is a little depressing.
Still, a surprising enjoyable read.
Published in 2007, it's simply his diary notes from 2003 to 2005, when he seemed to be caught in a period of "development hell" on several projects. Ironically, the only movie he actually directs in this period is one which went straight to DVD in the US, despite its big name stars (John Cusack and Morgan Freeman). (He really did not want to do it at all, but it's the one he ends up committed to.)
I have a vague recollection of reading some reviews of the book at the time it came out, but I'm glad I stumble across it. It's a really fascinating, amusing, almost disturbing, insight into this bizarre business.
You have to wonder how anything good ever manages to get out of such a horrendous system, which really does seems extraordinarily full of chronic liars, exaggerators, the intensely libidinous, vanity filled stars, and producers who delegate artistic decision making to mere college graduates. About the only thing he doesn't seem to mention is recreational drug taking in the industry - perhaps that really is a bit 1970's - 80's now.
I'm not all that fussed with Beresford's own output, which ranges wildly in style ("Adventures of Barry Mackenzie", "Puberty Blues" - yuck - "Breaker Morant" - pretty good - "Tender Mercies" - haven't seen it, and "Driving Miss Daisy" - way over-rated - to name a few) but he's had such a long career on all continents that his extremely frank comments on the industry sound very convincing. He also, surprisingly, is apparently regarded by some as right wing. (Well, he certainly is a long term friend of conservative-ish Barry Humphries, but it seems clear he is left sympathetic, just not as invested in it as many on the Left in the arts are. He is also sensible and dismissive of those on the Left who do things like semi defend the Castro - or worse - communist regimes.)
Amongst other snippets from the book:
* an American producer asked him to change the name "Singapore" in war drama Paradise Road because it "sounded silly."
* Harrison Ford did not say a word to him - just a few grunts - during a lunchtime meeting. (I had heard that one before.)
* Makes the observation that a director barely has to know what he is doing, but if the technicians around him do, a film will still be made.
* Directors have to have a medical examination - often a few - to satisfy the insurers before they are hired for a movie these days.
* Recently retired Australian movie critic Evan Williams had 3 (or 4?) daughters who all got caught up in an Indian cult.
Perhaps the thing best illustrated by the book is the line by famous screenwriter William Goldman that in Hollywood "nobody knows anything." I mean, Beresford himself admits he's made totally wrong calls on movies which turned out to be smash hits. He also spends a lot of effort during the period of the diaries trying to get made his own adaptation of a historical Australian novel I certainly have never heard about and which ends with the central character going insane. Don't see much box office potential in that, myself...
On the other hand, a lot of what he says does strike a cord of common sense.
What he doesn't address is the one thing I still puzzle about - how the move to digital technology in both filming and projection has (apparently) completely failed to made movie making a cheaper, quicker, more economical business.
It's clear that anyone who manages to get their screenplay made into a film with significant exposure to the market is extraordinarily lucky. Which, like the hundreds of budding actors each year who never get beyond being wait-persons in LA restaurants, is a little depressing.
Still, a surprising enjoyable read.
Animation reviews
I've seen 3 animated films over the last week or two, and here are my thoughts on each:
* Big Hero 6: a very pleasing and exciting mashup of Marvel movie style action (which, to my mind, plays better in animation than with real life actors on obviously CGI filled screens) and revenge themes; Pixar style superb animation; and eye moistening Disney style (when they get it right) emotionalism.
To elaborate a bit further: the action sequences reminded me a bit of The Incredibles - it may be completely unrealistic, but with animation, you can avoid worrying about that but just be pleased by the visual excitement. (Contrast some of the ridiculously big falls that characters are meant to walk or run away from in some big budget live action films these days.)
The animated world it's set in is delightful and (as I read in someone's review) like an upbeat version of the setting of Blade Runner. And the emotionalism - I think they get it just right.
Both my kids said immediately after it finished that they wanted to see it again - not such a common reaction these days - and that speaks for itself.
* Penguins of Madagascar: sure, there are laughs to be had from some of the funniest support characters from the Madagascar movies; but really, with the villain being an evil octopus that manages to pass itself off as human (happens all the time), the movie is too obviously pitched at too young an audience.
Somewhat disappointing for this reason. Sure keeps a lot of Indian animators in work, though.
[I see that the less than expected box office has renewed discussion of whether Dreamworks animation is - sorta - in trouble. They do have a fair bit of trouble with story strength, if you ask me.]
* The Wind Rises: finally caught up with Miyazake's semi-historical film about the famous (in Japan) lead designer of the Zero fighter.
Lavishly animated in the very pleasing Miyazake painterly style, I found it always engaging, and continually raising the question "I wonder how accurate that part of the story is?"
I see from articles like this one that it is more accurate in tone than in many details, and sort of merges two sources (one fictional) together. I don't think it matters much, as the fairly extensive dream sequences make it clear that the details are often coming from the mind of Miyazake.
I find the narrative in his films often starts petering out in interest in the last third, but this one really was good to the end. This makes it one of his strongest films, and well worth seeing.
As always, if your DVD or Blu-ray copy has a press conference with Miyazake as a special feature, do try to watch it. He's again a cranky about certain questions, but it makes him pretty endearing. (For example, he's really unhappy about being asked persistently about crying when seeing the completed movie.)
* Big Hero 6: a very pleasing and exciting mashup of Marvel movie style action (which, to my mind, plays better in animation than with real life actors on obviously CGI filled screens) and revenge themes; Pixar style superb animation; and eye moistening Disney style (when they get it right) emotionalism.
To elaborate a bit further: the action sequences reminded me a bit of The Incredibles - it may be completely unrealistic, but with animation, you can avoid worrying about that but just be pleased by the visual excitement. (Contrast some of the ridiculously big falls that characters are meant to walk or run away from in some big budget live action films these days.)
The animated world it's set in is delightful and (as I read in someone's review) like an upbeat version of the setting of Blade Runner. And the emotionalism - I think they get it just right.
Both my kids said immediately after it finished that they wanted to see it again - not such a common reaction these days - and that speaks for itself.
* Penguins of Madagascar: sure, there are laughs to be had from some of the funniest support characters from the Madagascar movies; but really, with the villain being an evil octopus that manages to pass itself off as human (happens all the time), the movie is too obviously pitched at too young an audience.
Somewhat disappointing for this reason. Sure keeps a lot of Indian animators in work, though.
[I see that the less than expected box office has renewed discussion of whether Dreamworks animation is - sorta - in trouble. They do have a fair bit of trouble with story strength, if you ask me.]
* The Wind Rises: finally caught up with Miyazake's semi-historical film about the famous (in Japan) lead designer of the Zero fighter.
Lavishly animated in the very pleasing Miyazake painterly style, I found it always engaging, and continually raising the question "I wonder how accurate that part of the story is?"
I see from articles like this one that it is more accurate in tone than in many details, and sort of merges two sources (one fictional) together. I don't think it matters much, as the fairly extensive dream sequences make it clear that the details are often coming from the mind of Miyazake.
I find the narrative in his films often starts petering out in interest in the last third, but this one really was good to the end. This makes it one of his strongest films, and well worth seeing.
As always, if your DVD or Blu-ray copy has a press conference with Miyazake as a special feature, do try to watch it. He's again a cranky about certain questions, but it makes him pretty endearing. (For example, he's really unhappy about being asked persistently about crying when seeing the completed movie.)
Yay for Free Will
Although it appears that Daniel Dennett has been making this argument for some years now, I haven't followed him closely.
In any event, the way he explains his position regarding free will in this interview extract that recently appeared on Salon is, in my opinion, very convincing.
It's good to see a professional philosopher type explaining well a line of argument that, I always felt during idle showertime thoughts on the topic, made a lot of common sense. Here are some key sections:
In any event, the way he explains his position regarding free will in this interview extract that recently appeared on Salon is, in my opinion, very convincing.
It's good to see a professional philosopher type explaining well a line of argument that, I always felt during idle showertime thoughts on the topic, made a lot of common sense. Here are some key sections:
NW: The classic description of the problem is this: ‘If we can explain every action through a series of causal precedents, there is no space for free will.’ What’s wrong with that description?
DD: It’s completely wrong. There’s plenty of space for free will: determinism and free will are not incompatible at all.
The problem is that philosophers have a very simplistic idea of causation. They think that if you give the lowest-level atomic explanation, then you have given a complete account of the causation: that’s all the causation there is. In fact, that isn’t even causation in an interesting sense.
NW: How is that simplistic? After all , at the level of billiard balls on a table, one ball hits another one and it causes the second one to move. Neither ball has any choice about whether it moved; their paths were determined physically.
DD: The problem with that is that it ignores all of the higher-level forms of causation which are just as real and just as important. Suppose you had a complete atom-by-atom history of every giraffe that ever lived, and every giraffe ancestor that ever lived. You wouldn’t have an answer to the question of why they have long necks. There is indeed a causal explanation, but it’s lost in those details. You have to go to a different level in order to explain why the giraffe developed its long neck. That’s the notion of causation that matters for free will.
....
NW: So that’s an evolutionary hypothesis about giraffes’ necks. H ow does it shed any light on the free will debate?
DD: If I want to know why you pulled the trigger, I won’t learn that by having an atom-by-atom account of what went on in your brain. I’d have to go to a higher level: I’d have to go to the intentional stance in psychology Here’s a very simple analogy: you’ve got a hand calculator and you put in a number, and it gives the answer 3.333333E. Why did it do that? Well, if you tap in ten divided by three, and the answer is an infinite continuing decimal, the calculator gives an ‘E’.
Now, if you want to understand which cases this will happen to, don’t examine each and every individual transistor: use arithmetic. Arithmetic tells you which set of cases will give you an ‘E’. Don’t think that you can answer that question by electronics. That’s the wrong level. The same is true with playing computer chess. Why did the computer move its bishop? Because otherwise its queen would have been captured. That’s the level at which you answer that question.
Happy New Year, possums
Guess what? Possums have returned to the under-the-balcony hidey spot after a full year's absence.
Have I mentioned this story here before? In December 2013, we had a contractor come in to replace a retaining wall in the back yard, and this involved laying down a concrete base. He put the (inherently loud) concrete mixer - you know, this type of thing:
- in the front yard, close to the balcony, within a few metres of the spot where we would often find and feed a possum or two in the daytime.
Clearly, possums hate loud mechanic devices in close proximity, and they disappeared from that spot, although we still hear them walking on the roof and making that awful call some nights.
But lo and behold, a furry tail was spotted out the window of 31 December, and here is what we found:
and:
Close observers of my possum pics over the years may note that the mother possum here is not the one who used to regularly feature: she had a distinctive notch out of her right ear. So this may be a new generation of possums, but its nice that they do return - eventually. And they still like to be fed.
Have I mentioned this story here before? In December 2013, we had a contractor come in to replace a retaining wall in the back yard, and this involved laying down a concrete base. He put the (inherently loud) concrete mixer - you know, this type of thing:
Clearly, possums hate loud mechanic devices in close proximity, and they disappeared from that spot, although we still hear them walking on the roof and making that awful call some nights.
But lo and behold, a furry tail was spotted out the window of 31 December, and here is what we found:
and:
Close observers of my possum pics over the years may note that the mother possum here is not the one who used to regularly feature: she had a distinctive notch out of her right ear. So this may be a new generation of possums, but its nice that they do return - eventually. And they still like to be fed.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Christmas Greetings
Not sure how Christmas-y that really is, but there sure is a lot to look at
Update: for the person who asked in comments, the painting is Salvador Dali's Madonna of Port Lligat, which is discussed at Wikipedia here. It gets a lengthier analysis at this site.
The remaining mystery of "what does"
Income management doesn't work, so let's look at what does
So some research has reported that income management for aborigines in the Northern Territory is not really working. But, as many people in comments after this piece say, the author does not address what does work, other than in the type of general platitudes that are always floating around these issues.
So some research has reported that income management for aborigines in the Northern Territory is not really working. But, as many people in comments after this piece say, the author does not address what does work, other than in the type of general platitudes that are always floating around these issues.
Don't panic
The world is not falling apart: The trend lines reveal an increasingly peaceful period in history.
Steven Pinker sets out to prove that the world is not, despite current impressions, going to rack and ruin with violence. He does a pretty good job, too.
As for Tony Abbott's "Merry Christmas" warning that terrorism was "likely" - I'm not sure that anyone believes anything he says about anything anyway. Certainly, historically, it seems Islamic terrorists have chosen never to stage massive attacks during the Christmas season. But now that I Google the topic, I see that the UK and US media gave some coverage at the start of December to concerns that al-Qaida was planning airline attacks before Christmas. I don't recall reading that in the Australian media, which is odd, seeing Rupert has developed a large Islamic bee in his bonnet.
Hey, I seem to have strayed somewhat from the cheery tone that I was aiming for. Oh well, there's probably an asteroid with Canberra's name on it that Abbott's cuts to science means won't be detected, anyway.
And for the astute observer of this blog, perhaps you can tell from my Marvin-tinged tone, as well as the title, that I recently found that the BCC TV version of Hitchhikers Guide is on Youtube. You can thank me later.
Steven Pinker sets out to prove that the world is not, despite current impressions, going to rack and ruin with violence. He does a pretty good job, too.
As for Tony Abbott's "Merry Christmas" warning that terrorism was "likely" - I'm not sure that anyone believes anything he says about anything anyway. Certainly, historically, it seems Islamic terrorists have chosen never to stage massive attacks during the Christmas season. But now that I Google the topic, I see that the UK and US media gave some coverage at the start of December to concerns that al-Qaida was planning airline attacks before Christmas. I don't recall reading that in the Australian media, which is odd, seeing Rupert has developed a large Islamic bee in his bonnet.
Hey, I seem to have strayed somewhat from the cheery tone that I was aiming for. Oh well, there's probably an asteroid with Canberra's name on it that Abbott's cuts to science means won't be detected, anyway.
And for the astute observer of this blog, perhaps you can tell from my Marvin-tinged tone, as well as the title, that I recently found that the BCC TV version of Hitchhikers Guide is on Youtube. You can thank me later.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Cartoonist makes good
Probably it's because I wish I had talent with a pen, but this story of a young guy taking a risk and succeeding in (what I assume is) a very competitive field was really pleasing to watch on 7.30 recently.
Bad advice, and a nice graphic
Hey, I haven't derided Senator Leyonhjelm for at least 4 hours, so it's time to do so again. A sign of good politician is that he has a good sense of from whom to take advice. Leyonhjelm doesn't display that talent:
But as Senator Leyonhjelm would say:
Leyonhjelm, a self-described “libertarian”, is being advised Max Rheese – the former long-serving executive director of the Australian Environment Foundation – a spin off of the ultra-conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.While we're on the topic of global warming, he's a nice graphic from Greg Laden:
The AEF describes itself as an “environmental NGO”, but it disputes the science of climate change. And it hates wind energy, urging all its supporters to attend the anti-wind rallies held last year in Canberra, which were hosted by conservative shock jock Alan Jones, the man who elicited the “wind farms are utterly offensive” comments from Treasurer Joe Hockey.
For a taste of what this environmental group thinks about climate science, see this speech in 2010 by then chairman Alex Stuart. One quote: “There is no link between man-made trace greenhouse gases and scenarios of climate catastrophe.” He labels such theories as “catastrophist” and are aimed at “reining in mankind.”
But as Senator Leyonhjelm would say:
Good, detailed article on Antarctic sea ice
RealClimate: Clarity on Antarctic sea ice.
Of course, the people who most need educating on this probably won't read it.
Of course, the people who most need educating on this probably won't read it.
More about a book I didn't care for
My Brother Jack at 50 – the novel of a man whose whole life led up to it | Books | The Guardian
I recently mentioned this book in my post about David Malouf's Johnno. It was a high school English assigned novel, if I recall correctly, and I didn't much care for it. (I think the version produced for high school in the 1970's had one or two rude bits excised.)
Nonetheless, it is somewhat interesting to read about the background of the author, and I didn't recall that the book was only published in 1964. George Johnston and his wife had moved to the Greek island of Hydra in the 1950's, but certainly did not have a great life despite the book's success:
I recently mentioned this book in my post about David Malouf's Johnno. It was a high school English assigned novel, if I recall correctly, and I didn't much care for it. (I think the version produced for high school in the 1970's had one or two rude bits excised.)
Nonetheless, it is somewhat interesting to read about the background of the author, and I didn't recall that the book was only published in 1964. George Johnston and his wife had moved to the Greek island of Hydra in the 1950's, but certainly did not have a great life despite the book's success:
The wind-whipped Hydra winters are harsh, however. Johnston and Clift had
little money, often living on credit from local shopkeepers. By the time My Brother Jack was published, their marriage was deeply strained; tuberculosis and subsequent medical treatment had rendered Johnston impotent and infidelity was a constant undercurrent of their
relationship. Johnston left Hydra in 1964, a physical shadow of the strapping man who’d departed Australia in 1951. Despite his reputation as a journalist, and the moderate success he’d enjoyed as a novelist, MyBrother Jack was his make or break moment.
He knew that he didn’t have many writing years left. But the success, Johnston’s due, did finally come with the publication of My Brother Jack.
The Johnston-Clifts settled in Mosman, Sydney. Both continued to drink heavily, Clift especially so, although she managed to produce a popular newspaper column while Johnston wrote his famous sequel. This time he wrote no less evocatively about island life in Greece in Clean
Straw for Nothing, in the same way he’d conjured suburban Melbourne from Greece in My Brother Jack.
Clift died of a barbiturate overdose at 45 in 1969, just as Clean Straw for Nothing was about to be published and before it, too, won the Miles Franklin Award.
Johnston died a year later, at 58, before he could finish the third instalment of the Meredith trilogy, A Cartload of Clay. It was published posthumously in 1971.
The postscript was no happier. Shane Johnston committed suicide in 1974. In 1988 Johnston’s daughter by his first marriage, Gae, died of a drug overdose. Then Martin Johnston, an acclaimed poet, died of alcoholism at 42 in 1990. Only Hydra-born Jason Johnston survives.
Self defence
David Leyonhjelm's fall back position from every person being able to carry a pistol will help reduce gun violence (yeah, well, he's still in mourning about not being pat his guns for comfort) is that Australian should at least be able to carry items for self defence.
In this regard, the Wikipedia article on pepper spray is interesting. I see that it has long been controversial in the States for its likely contribution to scores of deaths, and on the international scene, it is has very variable regulation. It's not at all uncommon for it to be banned entirely, while other countries may allow it under licence, or for use only in protection against animals.
Tasers are of course controversial for their potential lethality too. Wikipedia indicates that they are illegal for the public to have just about everywhere, except the Czech republic, and of course, many parts of the United States.
As for knives: well, they can do a pretty good job at mass killing too, and I am not surprised that they are regulated and that police have concerns about certain groups having one in their possession. I'm not entirely sure how one regulates so that the police can take one off a bunch of drunken youths in a nightclub area, but leave it with the young woman coming home from the office who thinks it will be useful in self defence.
And really, the dubious utility of allowing people to arm themselves is the big problem for all self defence. First, the chances of involvement with violent crime for most people, in the course of a lifetime, in a country like Australia, is very very small. Worrying about being armed against attack in a normal day is, I would say, a touch paranoid for nearly all men. (It's less so for women who are out at night, unfortunately, but statistically I would be sure the reality is far different from the perception.) But for those who do have exposure to danger, there is no certainty at all that having a non lethal form of self defence is going to be accessible or useful in the event of attack.
And, of course, the number of cases in which self defence items are successfully deployed has to be considered in light of the number of times criminals may successful use them aggressively for their own purposes. And that certainly happens with non lethal items as well as with guns - see these articles from the States in 1995 and just this year about the criminal use of pepper spray, for example.
In the big picture of what's better for society overall, I think most Australians are comfortable with what's illegal from a potential weapon point of view.
Update: even nice old Canada can have criminal problems with pepper spray - where it appears popular for protection against bears - as appears from this report from earlier this year. There are some surprising figures:
In this regard, the Wikipedia article on pepper spray is interesting. I see that it has long been controversial in the States for its likely contribution to scores of deaths, and on the international scene, it is has very variable regulation. It's not at all uncommon for it to be banned entirely, while other countries may allow it under licence, or for use only in protection against animals.
Tasers are of course controversial for their potential lethality too. Wikipedia indicates that they are illegal for the public to have just about everywhere, except the Czech republic, and of course, many parts of the United States.
As for knives: well, they can do a pretty good job at mass killing too, and I am not surprised that they are regulated and that police have concerns about certain groups having one in their possession. I'm not entirely sure how one regulates so that the police can take one off a bunch of drunken youths in a nightclub area, but leave it with the young woman coming home from the office who thinks it will be useful in self defence.
And really, the dubious utility of allowing people to arm themselves is the big problem for all self defence. First, the chances of involvement with violent crime for most people, in the course of a lifetime, in a country like Australia, is very very small. Worrying about being armed against attack in a normal day is, I would say, a touch paranoid for nearly all men. (It's less so for women who are out at night, unfortunately, but statistically I would be sure the reality is far different from the perception.) But for those who do have exposure to danger, there is no certainty at all that having a non lethal form of self defence is going to be accessible or useful in the event of attack.
And, of course, the number of cases in which self defence items are successfully deployed has to be considered in light of the number of times criminals may successful use them aggressively for their own purposes. And that certainly happens with non lethal items as well as with guns - see these articles from the States in 1995 and just this year about the criminal use of pepper spray, for example.
In the big picture of what's better for society overall, I think most Australians are comfortable with what's illegal from a potential weapon point of view.
Update: even nice old Canada can have criminal problems with pepper spray - where it appears popular for protection against bears - as appears from this report from earlier this year. There are some surprising figures:
CALGARY – Police say there’s an alarming increase in the use of pepper spray by local criminals.
In 2011, police recorded 88 incidents where pepper spray was used. A year later that number almost doubled to 161. Then, in 2013 there were 147 incident in the first nine months, which suggests an upward trend
The latest pepper spray incident was during a robbery at the Bay location at Market Mall on Wednesday.
Christmas physics
[1209.0881] A Potential Foundation for Emergent Space-Time
The abstract:
All rather interesting, anyway.
The abstract:
We present a novel derivation of both the Minkowski metric and LorentzBut the introduction of the paper itself makes the point a bit clearer:
transformations from the consistent quantification of a causally ordered set of
events with respect to an embedded observer. Unlike past derivations, which
have relied on assumptions such as the existence of a 4-dimensional manifold,
symmetries of space-time, or the constant speed of light, we demonstrate that
these now familiar mathematics can be derived as the unique means to
consistently quantify a network of events. This suggests that space-time need
not be physical, but instead the mathematics of space and time emerges as the
unique way in which an observer can consistently quantify events and their
relationships to one another. The result is a potential foundation for emergent
space-time.
We demonstrate that concepts of space and time, and their precise relation to one another, can emerge as a representation of relations among causally-related events. While we take causality as a postulate, we have demonstrated in other work [22][23] that it is of benefit to push back further and consider the idea that directed particle particle interactions enable one to define a causal ordering among related events. The basic idea is that everything that is detected or measured is the direct result of something influencing something else. We focus on an intentionally simplistic, but fundamental, picture of influence where we consider the process of influence to connect and order the act of influencing and the act of being influenced. We refer to each of these two acts with the generic term event, so that the event associated with the act of influencing causes the event associated with the act of being influenced.Rather sounds like physicists working on a way of supporting Aquinas (or Sound of Music theology - "nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could".) And - guess what - I see that the work was supported by a grant from the Templeton Foundation.
All rather interesting, anyway.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Maybe I should change hangover medicine this holiday season
Ibuprofen boosts some organisms’ life spans | Science/AAAS | News
I like the warning given at the end of the report:
I like the warning given at the end of the report:
So far, researchers haven’t shown that any drug extends human life span.
To folks who are impatient, Miller cautions against extrapolating the
study’s results, especially because the side effects of long-term
ibuprofen use can include fatal stomach bleeding. “I think any person
who says, ‘Anything that works in yeast is something I want to take,’ is
asking for trouble.”
Sunday, December 21, 2014
A good haircut today? Jawohl!
It was only a few months ago that I told the story of an incident at a post office in Brisbane in about 1979 in which the European man serving me was very sure, from the way I spoke, that I was from Europe, rather than from a house 300 metres down the road. This happened just after I had returned from staying in youth hostels in New Zealand, where nearly no one picked that I was from Australia.
Fast forward 35 years, and yesterday I went to a new barber about 300 m from my house. He had a European accent, and after my explanation of what was desired of the hair cut, he said "Are you from Munich?"
As with the post office incident, the following conversation went something like this:
"Um, no, I'm from Brisbane."
"Really! I could have sworn you were from Europe. The way you speak English.."
"Er, no. Born in Brisbane. Never even been to Germany."
"It just sounds like you learned English in Europe as a second language - I thought German, maybe French.."
And then I told him the post office story from 1979.
The barber, incidentally, was from Spain, and has only been living in Brisbane for a year or so, escaping the terrible economy of that country. So it certainly seems that to at least some European men, I sound very much like English is my second language.
I am not entirely sure what to make of that, but it is at least amusingly odd. I told my family that it perhaps gives me a certain air of mystery and intrigue. They aren't convinced.
Fast forward 35 years, and yesterday I went to a new barber about 300 m from my house. He had a European accent, and after my explanation of what was desired of the hair cut, he said "Are you from Munich?"
As with the post office incident, the following conversation went something like this:
"Um, no, I'm from Brisbane."
"Really! I could have sworn you were from Europe. The way you speak English.."
"Er, no. Born in Brisbane. Never even been to Germany."
"It just sounds like you learned English in Europe as a second language - I thought German, maybe French.."
And then I told him the post office story from 1979.
The barber, incidentally, was from Spain, and has only been living in Brisbane for a year or so, escaping the terrible economy of that country. So it certainly seems that to at least some European men, I sound very much like English is my second language.
I am not entirely sure what to make of that, but it is at least amusingly odd. I told my family that it perhaps gives me a certain air of mystery and intrigue. They aren't convinced.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Old and new (part 2)
OK, I know people will make the comparison about how ageing male singers don't cop the same style of assessment that comes the way of ageing females ones. But, even while feeling a tad guilty posting this, I still think viewers should be cautious watching this second video. It's not encouraging for those of us well on the path towards old age. But few of us, at least, have the heights of youthful gorgeousness from which to descend that Debbie had:
Careful now:
Careful now:
Old and new (part 1)
So, last night I spent a bit of time with the Chromecast looking at music videos, and found that Barenaked Ladies had a new song out last year with an amusing clip. The comparison of the band members in their younger and older versions is pretty remarkable, but they haven't done too bad in the ageing gracefully stakes:
First, the old:
Then the new:
They always seemed a very cheery bunch.
First, the old:
Then the new:
They always seemed a very cheery bunch.
I'll never look at mince the same way again
Hey, I missed this very amusingly made video from They Might be Giants last year. Better late than never:
Man, that's cutting...
I like savagely bad movie reviews, but this conclusion of Christopher Orr's thorough beating of, well, the entire Hobbit trilogy really, gets very, very cutting at the end:
In my review of the second Hobbit installment, I suggested that Jackson had confirmed his standing as the new George Lucas. With this finale, he makes the comparison all the more depressingly concrete. It’s one thing for a director to produce movies worse than the ones he made earlier in his career. But it requires a rare gift—and thank goodness—to produce movies that actually make that earlier work itself look worse.Heh...
Friday, December 19, 2014
Bolt and IPA connection missed
Well, it seems I am not reading the media closely enough, otherwise I would have given this evidence that, verily, the ABC (Australian/Bolt/Catallaxy) is a closely intertwined (some might say "incestuous") collective a run earlier in the year.
Turns out that Andrew Bolt's son James works for the IPA as Communications Co-ordinator.
And didn't the Bolt family get upset with the Saturday Paper revealing this, even though James himself, looking rather like a Bolt, is on the IPA website. As Ackland writes in that diary, there is a remarkable degree of hypocrisy in the Bolt family about public discussion of offspring. What exactly did Mrs Bolt think the readers of the Saturday Paper were going to do with this somewhat amusing discovery that the Institute most rabidly arguing for legislative changes to an Act because of its use against Andrew Bolt had a Bolt offspring on staff, trying to make sure that its communications on the topic were effective? Well, I assume that's part of a Communications Co-ordinator's job.
Of course, Labor and common soft left jobs like ABC journalism are chock full of professionally incestuous relationships. It's just that you don't often hear of such an example where the family involvement in the line being run by the organisation is so direct.
And they didn't get it changed anyway. How sad...
Turns out that Andrew Bolt's son James works for the IPA as Communications Co-ordinator.
And didn't the Bolt family get upset with the Saturday Paper revealing this, even though James himself, looking rather like a Bolt, is on the IPA website. As Ackland writes in that diary, there is a remarkable degree of hypocrisy in the Bolt family about public discussion of offspring. What exactly did Mrs Bolt think the readers of the Saturday Paper were going to do with this somewhat amusing discovery that the Institute most rabidly arguing for legislative changes to an Act because of its use against Andrew Bolt had a Bolt offspring on staff, trying to make sure that its communications on the topic were effective? Well, I assume that's part of a Communications Co-ordinator's job.
Of course, Labor and common soft left jobs like ABC journalism are chock full of professionally incestuous relationships. It's just that you don't often hear of such an example where the family involvement in the line being run by the organisation is so direct.
And they didn't get it changed anyway. How sad...
Merry Christmas, Julia (and bye bye Arthur)
Union royal commission finds no evidence of serious wrongdoing by Julia Gillard | Australia news | The Guardian
This was, of course, always an incredibly safe bet for anyone who had an ounce of common sense, for one simple reason: if anyone had compelling evidence of Gillard's knowledge of the matter, it would have been used to hurt her politically long, long ago by someone within Labor, let alone the Coalition.
I have said before that it is scandalous that a Victorian police investigation was allowed to drag on for so long given its political sensitivities. When is it going to announce that it is formally closed vis a vis the ex PM?
And, of course, Andrew Bolt's disgusting role in promoting all of the Michael Smith muck racking via the sleaziest of sleazy characters involved, and that of Pickering and Hedley Thomas, is a blot on the media landscape too.
Update: I see that Arthur Sinodinos has quit, which is really the right thing to do. It's unfortunate that one of the few politicians in the Abbott government who is widely liked, and considered moderate and sensible (well, until it came to how to make a quick buck for little work outside of politics) had to go, but them's the breaks.
Update 2: Bolt and Smith are saying that Heydon's disbelief of Gillard's evidence that she paid for all of it is some sort of damning result against her. Yeah: they have to say that to attempt to save face. In fact, to my mind, Heydon's sections about this read to me as the work of a somewhat eccentric judge. I mean, have a read of this:
Also, even if one disbelieves Gillard on that question (that she paid for it all and Wilson paid nothing) - who knows what Wilson may have said about the source of the money? We knew from the evidence that he was one to sometimes go on casino benders - and why could a winning night there not plausibly be the claimed the source of $5000?
There was never hope of proving that Gillard was knowingly receiving money Wilson fleeced from the company, which never pressed for charges against him anyway. Well, not without the clearest of clear evidence from parties who she had discussed it with. As I said at the start, if such evidence existed, it would have been used against her years ago.
So instead the story got recycled as a smear campaign by Smith, Bolt and Thomas for, what, about 3 years now?
It was a disgraceful journalistic performance by all involved, motivated by revenge at her understandable fury that had resulted in the sacking of a lazy journalist (Milne) and an obnoxious one (Smith).
The only good thing to come out of this is that Smith is now even discredited on the Right due to his apparent infatuation with the attention seeking Kathy Jackson. How's the Smith marriage holding up, I wonder?
This was, of course, always an incredibly safe bet for anyone who had an ounce of common sense, for one simple reason: if anyone had compelling evidence of Gillard's knowledge of the matter, it would have been used to hurt her politically long, long ago by someone within Labor, let alone the Coalition.
I have said before that it is scandalous that a Victorian police investigation was allowed to drag on for so long given its political sensitivities. When is it going to announce that it is formally closed vis a vis the ex PM?
And, of course, Andrew Bolt's disgusting role in promoting all of the Michael Smith muck racking via the sleaziest of sleazy characters involved, and that of Pickering and Hedley Thomas, is a blot on the media landscape too.
Update: I see that Arthur Sinodinos has quit, which is really the right thing to do. It's unfortunate that one of the few politicians in the Abbott government who is widely liked, and considered moderate and sensible (well, until it came to how to make a quick buck for little work outside of politics) had to go, but them's the breaks.
Update 2: Bolt and Smith are saying that Heydon's disbelief of Gillard's evidence that she paid for all of it is some sort of damning result against her. Yeah: they have to say that to attempt to save face. In fact, to my mind, Heydon's sections about this read to me as the work of a somewhat eccentric judge. I mean, have a read of this:
Gillard denied the claim, but the commission believed the account of her builder Athol James, who gave evidence that “she said Bruce was paying for it”.
The commission said there could be alternative explanations for Gillard’s testimony. The first was that she wanted it to be true that she had paid for all the renovations; the second was that she knew her testimony to be false.
It was very unlikely that Gillard’s testimony proceeded only from “some unconscious transmogrification of the truth proceeding from velleity”, the report says.
“She knew that Athol James’s testimony was inconsistent with the position she had developed over the years up to 2012.” The report adds it would be very hard for Gillard to make any concessions; “a cleaner solution was absolute denial”.Seems to me to quite of bit of unnecessary "thinking out loud" there.
Also, even if one disbelieves Gillard on that question (that she paid for it all and Wilson paid nothing) - who knows what Wilson may have said about the source of the money? We knew from the evidence that he was one to sometimes go on casino benders - and why could a winning night there not plausibly be the claimed the source of $5000?
There was never hope of proving that Gillard was knowingly receiving money Wilson fleeced from the company, which never pressed for charges against him anyway. Well, not without the clearest of clear evidence from parties who she had discussed it with. As I said at the start, if such evidence existed, it would have been used against her years ago.
So instead the story got recycled as a smear campaign by Smith, Bolt and Thomas for, what, about 3 years now?
It was a disgraceful journalistic performance by all involved, motivated by revenge at her understandable fury that had resulted in the sacking of a lazy journalist (Milne) and an obnoxious one (Smith).
The only good thing to come out of this is that Smith is now even discredited on the Right due to his apparent infatuation with the attention seeking Kathy Jackson. How's the Smith marriage holding up, I wonder?
Seedy space
Asteroid soil could fertilise farms in space - space - 16 December 2014 - New Scientist
Quite a bit of interesting stuff here about experiments to grow plants on the ISS.
Quite a bit of interesting stuff here about experiments to grow plants on the ISS.
Fuel cell potential
Japan Promotes Home Fuel Cell on Path to Hydrogen Society - Bloomberg
It seems to me that we never hear enough about the potential for fuel cells for domestic use. Japan has been pretty advanced in this regard, and they are still working on them, as this article indicates.
Within Australia, I wonder what their potential is as an alternative to battery back up for solar?
I never notice anyone writing about that....
It seems to me that we never hear enough about the potential for fuel cells for domestic use. Japan has been pretty advanced in this regard, and they are still working on them, as this article indicates.
Within Australia, I wonder what their potential is as an alternative to battery back up for solar?
I never notice anyone writing about that....
A great Lego science moment
How to Measure Planck’s Constant Using Lego | MIT Technology Review
Very cute in a science geek sort of way.
Very cute in a science geek sort of way.
Sometimes a higher profile doesn't help
David Leyonhjelm certainly gained himself a lot of media coverage by claiming that the answer to the Lindt hostage situation would have been for Australia to be more like Texas.
Of course, no other politician in the land that I know of has come out to agree with him (OK, maybe some State upper house nobody from a Shooters Party has - but who cares?), and every column about him that allows comments has been overwhelmed with negative reaction.
So I have my doubts this was good media strategy on his part.
I also thought it's about time his twitter profile was adjusted:
Of course, no other politician in the land that I know of has come out to agree with him (OK, maybe some State upper house nobody from a Shooters Party has - but who cares?), and every column about him that allows comments has been overwhelmed with negative reaction.
So I have my doubts this was good media strategy on his part.
I also thought it's about time his twitter profile was adjusted:
More from the Creighton files
I see that Adam Creighton returns to the line I noticed appearing recently from the Say's Law obsessive Steve Kates at Catallaxy - that the depreciation of the Australian dollar is now, according to these anti-Keynesian, simplistic, government-must-tax-and-spend-less-obsessives, not such a good thing after all. It hurts people's buying power, don't you know?
I wrote about this once before, at some length, but it remains all a bit rich, doesn't it? As I noted then, Sinclair Davidson in 2009 argued that the "price signal" of an increasing dollar meant that Australia had to cut costs or improve quality to keep its exports attractive. I wouldn't mind betting that Creighton and Kates would argue that business and government should still cut costs because that always makes things better, and lets the government return to budget surplus so as to enable the dollar to rise to improve the lot of people who want to holiday overseas and buy their sneakers on line instead of supporting a local shopkeeper.
Businesses and government running things efficiently is obviously a good thing economically. But the assumption that the answer to everything is "cut costs, cut spending" has to reach a point of diminishing returns somewhere, but you won't hear it from this school of economists. (Or, in the case of Judith Sloan, if they mention it once - as with her brief advocacy of increasing unemployment benefits - they never like to mention it again.)
And there is this continual thing I see now, repeated by Creighton today, that they really, really like the on line purchasing on the global market, and hate the idea of anything increasing the cost of that (such as trying to make sure too much GST is not avoided that way.) They also really enjoy their overseas holidays. (Creighton completely fails to mention the Australian tourism industry - yet it is surely one of the biggest parts of the economy that suffer under a high dollar.)
Now, it's true, I have had Labor voting relatives on a double income with no kids complain about how much tax they were paying under the Howard government, so I know self interest doesn't flow only on one side of politics. Nonetheless, it is very, very difficult not to conclude that the motivating factor on the small government, CIS/IPA, libertarian side of politics is basically simple selfishness. "It's my money, leave it alone!" is what it so often comes down to.
Update: OK, maybe I am being mean to Adam by already not acknowledging his advocacy for an inheritance tax. His line is more "it's my money, leave it alone, until I'm dead." And in any event, his advocacy of it was only on the basis that his taxes while alive are reduced, so I'm not sure that he deserves much credit for altruism for that line of argument.
I wrote about this once before, at some length, but it remains all a bit rich, doesn't it? As I noted then, Sinclair Davidson in 2009 argued that the "price signal" of an increasing dollar meant that Australia had to cut costs or improve quality to keep its exports attractive. I wouldn't mind betting that Creighton and Kates would argue that business and government should still cut costs because that always makes things better, and lets the government return to budget surplus so as to enable the dollar to rise to improve the lot of people who want to holiday overseas and buy their sneakers on line instead of supporting a local shopkeeper.
Businesses and government running things efficiently is obviously a good thing economically. But the assumption that the answer to everything is "cut costs, cut spending" has to reach a point of diminishing returns somewhere, but you won't hear it from this school of economists. (Or, in the case of Judith Sloan, if they mention it once - as with her brief advocacy of increasing unemployment benefits - they never like to mention it again.)
And there is this continual thing I see now, repeated by Creighton today, that they really, really like the on line purchasing on the global market, and hate the idea of anything increasing the cost of that (such as trying to make sure too much GST is not avoided that way.) They also really enjoy their overseas holidays. (Creighton completely fails to mention the Australian tourism industry - yet it is surely one of the biggest parts of the economy that suffer under a high dollar.)
Now, it's true, I have had Labor voting relatives on a double income with no kids complain about how much tax they were paying under the Howard government, so I know self interest doesn't flow only on one side of politics. Nonetheless, it is very, very difficult not to conclude that the motivating factor on the small government, CIS/IPA, libertarian side of politics is basically simple selfishness. "It's my money, leave it alone!" is what it so often comes down to.
Update: OK, maybe I am being mean to Adam by already not acknowledging his advocacy for an inheritance tax. His line is more "it's my money, leave it alone, until I'm dead." And in any event, his advocacy of it was only on the basis that his taxes while alive are reduced, so I'm not sure that he deserves much credit for altruism for that line of argument.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Hobbit off
Even though I have no interest whatsoever in the Hobbit movies, I see that quite a few reviewers really seem to be glad to see the back of the whole, drawn out, Peter Jackson obsession with Tolkien.
I got to that position ahead of them: after about 60 minutes into the first Rings movie.
In other "I am not alone about movie trends" news - I see Tim Burton says the Marvel superhero formula is getting boring. True, even if I found Guardians of the Galaxy pretty good. (But being an outright comedy meant it was not part of the formula - and the characters were not superheros, either.)
I got to that position ahead of them: after about 60 minutes into the first Rings movie.
In other "I am not alone about movie trends" news - I see Tim Burton says the Marvel superhero formula is getting boring. True, even if I found Guardians of the Galaxy pretty good. (But being an outright comedy meant it was not part of the formula - and the characters were not superheros, either.)
Wise choice
Professor Barry Spurr resigns from University of Sydney after email leaks
I wrote earlier that the emails left the University in a very difficult position - and I think it is a wise choice of the Professor to resign.
Pity he wasn't exercising wisdom when he wrote some of the emails. And I am still of the view that the worst of the emails - the exchange about a sexual assault which I find impossible not to be appalled about - actually received less attention in media commentary than it deserved...*
*OK, I'll modify that - it's not that I wanted it to be widely published, as it was an email which had the least justification for release from a public interest point of view. But, once it was out, if anyone was going to defend Spurr, they really had to address the email which is likely to have the most direct impact on his student's views about him, since I can't imagine any sensible female student being comfortable being lectured by a guy who they know has indicated a private view that a woman who merely is at a "room party" should be condemned for going to the police about a sexual assault that happens while she's asleep.
Instead, the Right wing commentairiate ignored this email. Probably because they knew it was indefensible at any level...
I wrote earlier that the emails left the University in a very difficult position - and I think it is a wise choice of the Professor to resign.
Pity he wasn't exercising wisdom when he wrote some of the emails. And I am still of the view that the worst of the emails - the exchange about a sexual assault which I find impossible not to be appalled about - actually received less attention in media commentary than it deserved...*
*OK, I'll modify that - it's not that I wanted it to be widely published, as it was an email which had the least justification for release from a public interest point of view. But, once it was out, if anyone was going to defend Spurr, they really had to address the email which is likely to have the most direct impact on his student's views about him, since I can't imagine any sensible female student being comfortable being lectured by a guy who they know has indicated a private view that a woman who merely is at a "room party" should be condemned for going to the police about a sexual assault that happens while she's asleep.
Instead, the Right wing commentairiate ignored this email. Probably because they knew it was indefensible at any level...
Let's help the Senator who can't Google... (aka: a list of some Texas hostage situations)
David Leyonhjelm is shooting his mouth off on national radio this morning saying that the Sydney hostage situation wouldn't likely happen in places like Texas, because of concealed carry laws. Let's Google the topic, shall we, and add some bold so the good Senator can't miss the relevant words:
My first Google brings up this item, from 2010:
Oh, and here's another one, from 2012:
My first Google brings up this item, from 2010:
Police: Houston area bank standoff ends, all hostages safeand this in 2007 isn't that hard to turn up either:
The Johnson Space Center shooting was an incident of hostage taking that occurred on April 20, 2007 in Building 44, the Communication and Tracking Development Laboratory, at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, United States.and 10 years before that:
Police were negotiating with a gunman who was holding an unidentified number of adults and children hostage Wednesday evening at a day care center in Plano, Texas.(concealed carry seems to have started there in 1995, by the way.)
Oh, and here's another one, from 2012:
"This guy was driving crazy, and he was shooting, and we were shooting, and people were ducking under cars," Singletary said.How about 2013?:
After the driver wrecked his car, he got out, ran into a building and took several people hostage, Stephens said. The suspect eventually surrendered to police, she said.
Authorities shot and killed a gunman who took a woman hostage from a Central Texas department store and fled with her, leading police on a chase through multiple counties.Gee, get this starting to get boring now: from 2011:
Gunman beat, tried to rape victim in hostage situationOK, one more time, from 2012, and I think we can agree: if the Senator loves concealed carry so much, he should move to the States where he can spend his time fondling his weapon to his heart's content:
TEMPLE, Texas A hostage situation inside Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple ended in gunfire Sunday evening.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Nutty Randians and paranoia
Sorry that I keep on going about the nuttiness of Catallaxy, but when reading this article about a convention for Randians in Las Vegas, I was struck by how this is exactly the same paranoid political philosophy analysis you see continually in threads at that blog:
“The Left dominates our intellectual world,” Brook declared. And yet, despite its success, the stated aims of the Left are merely a pretext for an agenda far more sinister than anything contained in the Democratic Party’s platform or, for that matter, a Michael Moore movie. Take the professed concern for the growing disparity between the very rich and the rest of America: The liberal impulse to address this gap may seem rooted in a sense of fairness or even a desire to promote social cohesion, but viewing it as such is extremely naïve. Indeed, it takes at face value the rhetoric of the Left, which keeps one from seeing it for what it really is: the language of a decades-long con game. “What they’re really after is not the well-being of anybody,” Brook explained. “They want power. They want to rule us.”It would all be laughable if it weren't for the fact that there are scores of US politicians whose similar paranoia about the "real reason" for the UN wanting action on climate change (it's all a socialist plot, don't you know?) is actually affecting the future of the entire globe.
It gets worse. For if “the intellectuals” use fear-mongering around the so-called problem of inequality to seize power, they wield it in favor of a nihilistic vision of the human condition. They aim to systematically undermine and annul the great achievements of heroic men and women, an effort that will not only corrupt the “American sense of life” but one that stabs at the very heart of Ayn Rand’s vision. “We need to tell the truth about these bastards,” Brook said. “We need to reveal them for what they really are. We need to expose them to the American people for what their agenda really is. They’re haters. Their focus is on hatred. Their focus is on tearing down. Their focus is on destroying.”
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Cheap shots - (and Whoops! Milestone Reached!!)
US Navy laser cannon blows targets out of the water - at $1 a shot
I just watched the video that's been on line for a week or so about this ship board laser weapon. It is amazing how pinpoint accurate it is, and the way it is controlled with a game console style handset.
I am also surprised at how cheap it is to run. Not sure how rapidly it can fire, yet, though.
MILESTONE NOTIFICATION: according to Google, my next post will be the 8,000th published.
What should it be about? Let's see, here are some candidates:
* I have been trying a new style of underwear lately, and I quite like them.
* My wife was watching Love Actually when I got home last night, leading me to expound again upon its awfulness; but I think I've covered that enough in the past. It did get me thinking, though, that I don't believe I have ever posted a list of my top ten most over-rated movies in history. I have at least 6 in mind.
* Just indulge in self congratulation?
* Commission my oldest regular reader that I know of, Tim from Will Type For Food, to write an epic poem to mark the occasion?
UPDATE: I have miscalculated. This is
PUBLISHED POST NUMBER 8,000.
An extraordinary day in Australian Blogging History, I am sure you'll agree.
All my own work - not a guest post in sight. Hours of dedication to the task of producing a blog with a diminishing number of readers, but which satisfies me anyway. As I have noted before, I've been writing here for so long that posts from years ago can be half forgotten, and on re-reading them, I am nearly always pleasantly surprised by their quality. Why the National Library isn't archiving it I'll never know. :)
Next year, it will be the 10 year anniversary. I won't be up to post 10,000 by then, but it will be the next milestone nonetheless.
And as for the underwear: it's those new-fangled (well, from 5 or 10 so years ago since they started appearing in numbers) boxer briefs. They have been a pleasant surprise too.
I just watched the video that's been on line for a week or so about this ship board laser weapon. It is amazing how pinpoint accurate it is, and the way it is controlled with a game console style handset.
I am also surprised at how cheap it is to run. Not sure how rapidly it can fire, yet, though.
MILESTONE NOTIFICATION: according to Google, my next post will be the 8,000th published.
What should it be about? Let's see, here are some candidates:
* I have been trying a new style of underwear lately, and I quite like them.
* My wife was watching Love Actually when I got home last night, leading me to expound again upon its awfulness; but I think I've covered that enough in the past. It did get me thinking, though, that I don't believe I have ever posted a list of my top ten most over-rated movies in history. I have at least 6 in mind.
* Just indulge in self congratulation?
* Commission my oldest regular reader that I know of, Tim from Will Type For Food, to write an epic poem to mark the occasion?
UPDATE: I have miscalculated. This is
PUBLISHED POST NUMBER 8,000.
An extraordinary day in Australian Blogging History, I am sure you'll agree.
All my own work - not a guest post in sight. Hours of dedication to the task of producing a blog with a diminishing number of readers, but which satisfies me anyway. As I have noted before, I've been writing here for so long that posts from years ago can be half forgotten, and on re-reading them, I am nearly always pleasantly surprised by their quality. Why the National Library isn't archiving it I'll never know. :)
Next year, it will be the 10 year anniversary. I won't be up to post 10,000 by then, but it will be the next milestone nonetheless.
And as for the underwear: it's those new-fangled (well, from 5 or 10 so years ago since they started appearing in numbers) boxer briefs. They have been a pleasant surprise too.
Quiggin on nuclear
Tell them they’re dreaming • Inside Story
John Quiggin's take on the poor prospects of nuclear power for Australia sure sounds pretty convincing.
John Quiggin's take on the poor prospects of nuclear power for Australia sure sounds pretty convincing.
Death and torture
While mourning the innocent lives lost in Sydney over night, most Australians would be somewhat relieved to know that the perpetrator was a nutter well known to the police, rather than a previously unknown "lone wolf" inspired by IS to make a grandiose stand for their fetid view of Islam. The latter would rightly raise the question "how many more are out there?" and the media would not be able to get off the topic for days at a time. It would also appear that the initial concern and rumour that this might be a widespread and co-ordinated terror event (with things like the Opera House being cleared) were unfounded. The police appear to have acted very professionally, and were on the scene quickly. So, despite the tragic outcome, there are some reasons for a sense of relief.
Not that it will be found in evidence at Catallaxy, where (as one would expect) the incident will end up with thousands of extreme comments about Islam. You really have to wonder about how proud Sinclair Davidson, who (very, very occasionally) waves the flag of moderation towards the religion of some of his friends, must feel about his readership.
And, of course, the blog's same participants have had little to say about the US Senate report on torture, but what was said was pretty much fully in support of the "this is all a Democrat stitch up" line of most Republicans.
The Dick Cheney interview on Fox on the weekend showed what a moral vacuum he, and quite a few of the political Right, have become. In this good article at Slate, the comparison is made between Republican complaints about how Obama is supposed to be "acting like Caesar" in making an executive decision about illegal immigrants, with their acceptance of the Cheney argument that it's OK for the State to do "whatever it takes" to torture to the point of death some folk who were in fact innocent:
As readers know, I have been talking about the same despotism friendly policies of this Abbott government in relation to boat arrivals - centralising decision making in the hands of one Minister; removing recourse to judicial review; justifying stopping boasts on the high seas, and imprisoning people from them on Australian ships for weeks at a time; returning them to their point of departure with no real review of why they are leaving.
This is much worse, in my view, than the libertarian hand wringing over government attempts to regulate data retention, because in fact the government proposals may end up with less access to the information for piffling reasons than currently exists anyway. (And besides which, the information is already informally retained for some period - the internet has always been capable of leaking. It is not as if the government is inventing some risk to individuals that is novel.)
Yet we have heard very little about the liberty abhorrent nature of the migration law changes in Australia, and both the media, and those who purport to be concerned about liberty in principal, should be ashamed.
Update: talking of the morally bankrupt, Rupert Murdoch knows just the right thing to say about the tragedy. [/sarc...and be sure to read the comments following.]
Update 2: Tony Abbott this morning twice referred to it as "politically motivated" violence. I would have thought, given this nutter's background, that most people would be thinking that's exactly what it wasn't. Just because a nutter holds hostages and wants to talk to the PM (as was reported yesterday, although I know of no confirmation) I don't see that that makes it "political". Once again, one has to question the smarts of this PM. (Although, for the most part, he and Mike Baird have deserve praise for seeking to ensure there is no general community backlash against the moderate Muslim community.)
Update 3: I have to agree with Jason Soon, Brendan O'Neill, whose writing generally makes me grind my teeth, gets the reaction to this incident just about right.
Except that, perhaps, he might be playing down this guy's role in radicalising others if Rachel Kohn's almost prophetic piece from 2009 is anything to go by. She points out that he was actively promoting radicalism (she was a direct target of it!) and he should have been the subject of much more active condemnation from the broader Islamic community. (And perhaps, even closer attention from the authorities - although, I guess we don't really know yet how closely he has been monitored over the years.)
Not that it will be found in evidence at Catallaxy, where (as one would expect) the incident will end up with thousands of extreme comments about Islam. You really have to wonder about how proud Sinclair Davidson, who (very, very occasionally) waves the flag of moderation towards the religion of some of his friends, must feel about his readership.
And, of course, the blog's same participants have had little to say about the US Senate report on torture, but what was said was pretty much fully in support of the "this is all a Democrat stitch up" line of most Republicans.
The Dick Cheney interview on Fox on the weekend showed what a moral vacuum he, and quite a few of the political Right, have become. In this good article at Slate, the comparison is made between Republican complaints about how Obama is supposed to be "acting like Caesar" in making an executive decision about illegal immigrants, with their acceptance of the Cheney argument that it's OK for the State to do "whatever it takes" to torture to the point of death some folk who were in fact innocent:
Still, if the immigration action is Caesarism—if, as Sen. Cruz has said, it’s the action of an “unaccountable monarch”—then the same is surely true of the torture program. In reality, it’s not even a comparison. On one hand, you have discretion for some unauthorized immigrants, rooted in congressional statutes. On the other, you have a secret and illegal program of kidnapping and torture, justified by wild claims of executive authority and defended in the name of “security.”
Barack Obama used his office to help illegal immigrants, and for this, Republicans have attacked him as a Caesar. That’s fine. But Dick Cheney used his office to claim dominion over the bodies and persons of alleged enemies, some of whom were innocent. If that isn’t Caesarism, if that isn’t despotism, then it’s something scarily close. But here, with few exceptions, Republicans are silent.Indeed: the Right has a long way to go to return to a sensible, moral, centre.
As readers know, I have been talking about the same despotism friendly policies of this Abbott government in relation to boat arrivals - centralising decision making in the hands of one Minister; removing recourse to judicial review; justifying stopping boasts on the high seas, and imprisoning people from them on Australian ships for weeks at a time; returning them to their point of departure with no real review of why they are leaving.
This is much worse, in my view, than the libertarian hand wringing over government attempts to regulate data retention, because in fact the government proposals may end up with less access to the information for piffling reasons than currently exists anyway. (And besides which, the information is already informally retained for some period - the internet has always been capable of leaking. It is not as if the government is inventing some risk to individuals that is novel.)
Yet we have heard very little about the liberty abhorrent nature of the migration law changes in Australia, and both the media, and those who purport to be concerned about liberty in principal, should be ashamed.
Update: talking of the morally bankrupt, Rupert Murdoch knows just the right thing to say about the tragedy. [/sarc...and be sure to read the comments following.]
Update 2: Tony Abbott this morning twice referred to it as "politically motivated" violence. I would have thought, given this nutter's background, that most people would be thinking that's exactly what it wasn't. Just because a nutter holds hostages and wants to talk to the PM (as was reported yesterday, although I know of no confirmation) I don't see that that makes it "political". Once again, one has to question the smarts of this PM. (Although, for the most part, he and Mike Baird have deserve praise for seeking to ensure there is no general community backlash against the moderate Muslim community.)
Update 3: I have to agree with Jason Soon, Brendan O'Neill, whose writing generally makes me grind my teeth, gets the reaction to this incident just about right.
Except that, perhaps, he might be playing down this guy's role in radicalising others if Rachel Kohn's almost prophetic piece from 2009 is anything to go by. She points out that he was actively promoting radicalism (she was a direct target of it!) and he should have been the subject of much more active condemnation from the broader Islamic community. (And perhaps, even closer attention from the authorities - although, I guess we don't really know yet how closely he has been monitored over the years.)
Monday, December 15, 2014
I'm no expert, but...
I see that David Leyonhjelm had an article in the AFR in which he decried the Labor Party's re-regulation of Australian mercantile shipping.
Now I'm no expert on this topic, but nor do I suspect is Senator Blofeld. The article reads very much as if it repeating information fed to him by a lobby group. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't make some good points.
Yet the reason I would take it with a grain of salt is that I had, for a number of years, the acquaintance of an old former merchant ship captain, who I knew was a steadfast Liberal Party supporter and active in his local branch. (He has, sadly, recently died.) He was a great supporter of the Howard government, but was strongly of the opinion they got it completely wrong on the way they had deregulated coastal shipping. The general gist of it was he believed the policy was severely undermining the nation's collective seamanship skills that would enable us to manage our own mercantile shipping fleet should the nation cease being serviced by those ships of other nations. He essentially saw it as a long term national security issue. (If I recall correctly, he also did not think that foreign shipping was up to scratch in safety or competency standards, either.)
Now, again, I have to say that I don't really know to what degree that the Labor re-regulation really improved this situation from his point of view. But all I can say is that, from knowing this old sea captain with good conservative political credentials and a lifetime of experience in the industry, I do think there is something to be said for not completely deregulating this industry.
Now I'm no expert on this topic, but nor do I suspect is Senator Blofeld. The article reads very much as if it repeating information fed to him by a lobby group. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't make some good points.
Yet the reason I would take it with a grain of salt is that I had, for a number of years, the acquaintance of an old former merchant ship captain, who I knew was a steadfast Liberal Party supporter and active in his local branch. (He has, sadly, recently died.) He was a great supporter of the Howard government, but was strongly of the opinion they got it completely wrong on the way they had deregulated coastal shipping. The general gist of it was he believed the policy was severely undermining the nation's collective seamanship skills that would enable us to manage our own mercantile shipping fleet should the nation cease being serviced by those ships of other nations. He essentially saw it as a long term national security issue. (If I recall correctly, he also did not think that foreign shipping was up to scratch in safety or competency standards, either.)
Now, again, I have to say that I don't really know to what degree that the Labor re-regulation really improved this situation from his point of view. But all I can say is that, from knowing this old sea captain with good conservative political credentials and a lifetime of experience in the industry, I do think there is something to be said for not completely deregulating this industry.
Weird
Isn't it more than a bit weird that some readers of Catallaxy can crack jokes during an actual hostage crisis underway in their own country? People use black humour for disasters that have happened at some distance, sometimes, but during a hostage crisis in their own country?
Update: not sure what the point would be of any Prime Minister doing a press conference only a few hours into a hostage situation, particularly a PM as prone to making gaffes as this one. Leader of "Team Australia" trying to comfort the nation in fatherly manner? Just issue a press statement, like Shorten did.
Update: not sure what the point would be of any Prime Minister doing a press conference only a few hours into a hostage situation, particularly a PM as prone to making gaffes as this one. Leader of "Team Australia" trying to comfort the nation in fatherly manner? Just issue a press statement, like Shorten did.
The partly correct Ergas
I have to admit that Henry Ergas comes across as almost balanced today in his column on health costs and the co-payment, where he agrees up front that the Australian health system actually seems to work well and at basically reasonable costs compared to international standards.
Where he goes more ideological than evidence based, though, is in the basic assumption that a "price signal" is warranted for GP services.
Economists may see increasing costs of providing services and instinctively say "price signal needed"; but obviously it is more complicated than that with health care, where treating a condition early may result in massive savings later. And really, what is the evidence that people love going to a doctor to waste time?
There have always been people willing to go to the doctor for trivial matters (my own mother was inclined to), but it is not as if this resulted in much of the way of excess visits over the course of a year. I think the great majority of people don't like going and only do so for what is usually a justifiable reason. Putting a price signal to discourage a small number of people who might warrant it for a minority of their visits to a doctor may quite likely be outweighed by the problems caused by the larger number of people who may delay treatment due to the cost.
If the price signal is meant to be directed more to doctors (if, for example, there seems evidence that they are doing unnecessary and wasteful pathology tests - and I have a hunch there have been cases where that suspicion is justified), then putting the price signal on that makes some sense; but it seems to me the evidence that you need a price signal on the average punter going to the doctor per se is completely lacking.
That doesn't stop a government simply saying the co-payment is needed as another tax, and people can decide whether that seems justifiable or not.
The worst aspect of the government's latest changes, though, is not that it has a $5 co-payment, but by drastically changing rebates to doctors, purely bulk billing practices seem likely to disappear, and the working poor will actually face a very large increase in the cost of going to the doctor. The "price signal" of their new policy is therefore dramatically worse for most people than the simple idea of $5 extra to go to a GP. I would not be surprised if that results in more expense for the health system in the long run.
This is a hopeless government, full of crook policies, and without an ounce of sense that I can detect.
Where he goes more ideological than evidence based, though, is in the basic assumption that a "price signal" is warranted for GP services.
Economists may see increasing costs of providing services and instinctively say "price signal needed"; but obviously it is more complicated than that with health care, where treating a condition early may result in massive savings later. And really, what is the evidence that people love going to a doctor to waste time?
There have always been people willing to go to the doctor for trivial matters (my own mother was inclined to), but it is not as if this resulted in much of the way of excess visits over the course of a year. I think the great majority of people don't like going and only do so for what is usually a justifiable reason. Putting a price signal to discourage a small number of people who might warrant it for a minority of their visits to a doctor may quite likely be outweighed by the problems caused by the larger number of people who may delay treatment due to the cost.
If the price signal is meant to be directed more to doctors (if, for example, there seems evidence that they are doing unnecessary and wasteful pathology tests - and I have a hunch there have been cases where that suspicion is justified), then putting the price signal on that makes some sense; but it seems to me the evidence that you need a price signal on the average punter going to the doctor per se is completely lacking.
That doesn't stop a government simply saying the co-payment is needed as another tax, and people can decide whether that seems justifiable or not.
The worst aspect of the government's latest changes, though, is not that it has a $5 co-payment, but by drastically changing rebates to doctors, purely bulk billing practices seem likely to disappear, and the working poor will actually face a very large increase in the cost of going to the doctor. The "price signal" of their new policy is therefore dramatically worse for most people than the simple idea of $5 extra to go to a GP. I would not be surprised if that results in more expense for the health system in the long run.
This is a hopeless government, full of crook policies, and without an ounce of sense that I can detect.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Oooh...does the IPA favour an inheritance tax now?
Fortune favours babes of boomers, and it all comes tax-free | The Australian
Adam Creighton comes out and argues that a modest sized inheritance tax would be a good idea. (But only if income taxes are lowered too, it seems.)
I had been wondering about this, as I think I saw Catallaxy a while ago run a bit by McCloskey in which she supported inheritance taxes too. (It seems, now that I Google it, that she has supported them for some time.)
Given their general allergy to taxes in all forms, I am surprised to see IPA aligned economist types tentatively suggesting a new one.
Next thing you know they'll be promoting a straight forward carbon tax as a sensible thing.
AH-hahahahahahaha
Update: I see that the IPA's Novak is still against them. Should I be congratulating Creighton for a having a view that isn't IPA endorsed?
Adam Creighton comes out and argues that a modest sized inheritance tax would be a good idea. (But only if income taxes are lowered too, it seems.)
I had been wondering about this, as I think I saw Catallaxy a while ago run a bit by McCloskey in which she supported inheritance taxes too. (It seems, now that I Google it, that she has supported them for some time.)
Given their general allergy to taxes in all forms, I am surprised to see IPA aligned economist types tentatively suggesting a new one.
Next thing you know they'll be promoting a straight forward carbon tax as a sensible thing.
AH-hahahahahahaha
Update: I see that the IPA's Novak is still against them. Should I be congratulating Creighton for a having a view that isn't IPA endorsed?
Thursday, December 11, 2014
More about the revised co-payment
GP co-payment 2.0: a triple whammy for patients
Good article here from Grattan Institute about the complexities of the changes to the co-payment scheme, and how it will hurt patients.
I tend to think that these problems need to be brought quickly to the publics attention by those opposed to it, because the headlines so far will not have given a correction impression of the consequences of the changes.
Good article here from Grattan Institute about the complexities of the changes to the co-payment scheme, and how it will hurt patients.
I tend to think that these problems need to be brought quickly to the publics attention by those opposed to it, because the headlines so far will not have given a correction impression of the consequences of the changes.
Ridley takedown
Matt Ridley, Anti-Science Writer, Climate Science Denialist – Greg Laden's Blog
Ridley is a favourite of the IPA style denialist set, and well and truly outed himself as having no credibility in his recent writings in which he endorsed Jonova's completely bogus complaints about BOM's work on temperature records in Australia.
Greg Laden does a good job at explaining how he is a denialist twit. Hence, he will continue to be believed and quoted by Bolt and Catallaxy.
Ridley is a favourite of the IPA style denialist set, and well and truly outed himself as having no credibility in his recent writings in which he endorsed Jonova's completely bogus complaints about BOM's work on temperature records in Australia.
Greg Laden does a good job at explaining how he is a denialist twit. Hence, he will continue to be believed and quoted by Bolt and Catallaxy.
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